


Rashomon

by Jael



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Costume Parties & Masquerades, Easter Eggs, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Heist, Leonard Snart Lives, Mystery, References to Leverage, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 09:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20964524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jael/pseuds/Jael
Summary: One night, five years before Rip Hunter collected his Legends, a very special piece of jewelry was on display at the Central City Museum of Art and Antiquities. And then...it vanished. Only one person has truly known how-until now. Inspired by the Leverage episode "The Rashomon Job."





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dragonydreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonydreams/gifts).

> This was such an interesting one to write. It's based (more inspired by than AU) on the Leverage episode "The Rashomon Job," which was in turn inspired by the 1950 Japanese film Rashomon. In both of those, the story unfolds through stories about the same events told by different characters, each of whom has a distinctly different POV.
> 
> Just like in this story.
> 
> This starts out after the events of Legends of Tomorrow's first season (with a few notable changes) and refers back to events five years before that. There are seven chapters, all posted. (And a number of Easter eggs.)
> 
> Many thanks to Pir8grl, and happy birthday to Dragonydreams!

Rip can hear the voices, rising, all the way down the hall.

For a moment, the former Time Master struggles with two competing urges. He should, as the captain of this peculiar crew, go check things out. On the other hand, he may very well simply _not want to know_.

That seems to happen rather a lot, especially when certain of his team members are involved. And he can easily pick out the voices of at least two of that group. And then he hears a few words they’re saying…

Rip heads for the galley at a trot, blinking in disbelief. It can’t be. Can it? But it _could_ explain…well, so much. But what were the odds? That’d been…what, five years ago by linear time?

There are four of them in the galley when he enters. Dr. Stein, Mr. Jackson, and Ms. Saunders are nowhere to be seen, but—yes—that tripartite and oh-so-common combination of Mr. Rory, Mr. Snart, and Sara...Ms. Lance...are there, along with, somewhat incongruously, Dr. Palmer. All of them glance up with varying degrees of surprise, but they all also return to their “conversation” with barely a nod at him.

“I tell you, Haircut, I stole it,” Mr. Rory is saying, somewhat belligerently. “Wouldn’t be no point in lying about it.”

Rip is still considering the double negative when Sara speaks up, her tone a mix of what seems to be amused and thoughtful.

“Ray didn’t say you were lying, Mick,” she points out, perched on one of the counter stools like her avian namesake. “He just thought you might be...mistaken.”

Mr. Snart makes a small noise that might be agreement or consideration or both. He’s sitting next to Sara—as usual—but acting like that’s mere coincidence—also as usual—and not the fact that he gravitates toward her every chance he gets. Rip eyes him warily, possessed of his usual mixed feelings about that. He doesn’t think he and the thief will ever be friends, but...if not for Mr. Snart’s sacrifice at the Vanishing Point, he wouldn’t have been able to rescue Miranda and Jonas.

It doesn’t matter that that “sacrifice” had a happy ending when they’d found Snart suspended in the timestream, or that Rip can't see his wife and son again until Vandal Savage is finally dead for good, for the sake of the timeline. The fact is that the thief had thought he’d die at the Vanishing Point, and that Miranda and Jonas are alive because of his actions.

For that, Rip will always owe him.

Mr. Snart looks up, then, gaze glancing across Rip’s. After a moment, he inclines his head, an acknowledgment. Rip does the same in return, shaking his head as the other man goes right back to watching Sara. Who can’t be unaware of his gaze, though she’s not returning it. At the moment.

Bloody hell. He’s not sure precisely what’s going on there, but one of these days, they’re both going to have to do _something _about it.

But: “Ain’t mistaken,” Mr. Rory says in a surly tone, taking a long swig from the beer in his hand. “Crown thing-y with a big blue stone and a buncha little blue stones and diamonds. Last seen in Central City. Worth a crap-ton of money.”

Oh. Oh, yes, he’d heard the earlier words correctly after all. Rip opens his mouth to interject, but then Dr. Palmer speaks up.

“Then where is it?” he asks, his tone just a little...off...from his usual native earnestness. “What did you do with it?”

Mr. Rory hesitates. Dr. Palmer nods, a satisfied look on his face, but Rip cuts in then, finally. “You are talking about the...ah...so-called Glacier Tiara?”

Four sets of eyes regard him. After a long moment, Mr. Snart chuckles, a low and knowing sound, shifting in his seat and studying Rip like he’s done something unexpected.

“Well, well,” he drawls, considering the captain. “And what do you know about that, _Rip_?”

Rip narrows his eyes at the other man. “Enough, Mr. Snart,” he says coolly, folding his arms and leaning against the counter. “And what do you know of it?”

Sara laughs, a rippling sound that has Snart glancing back at her with a light in his chilly eyes. She grins at him, then glances around the room. “I’m finding that all of us know more about it than I would have expected,” she notes, voice low and amused. “And Len is the least surprising.”

_Ah, it’s _Len_ now, is it? _Rip gives her a small smile. “Well, it is worth a rather obscene amount of money,” he acknowledges. “And it’s rather a mystery, isn’t it? How it…disappeared like that?”

Sara lifts an eyebrow at him (and so does Snart), but Mick makes an annoyed noise again.

“Told you,” he says gruffly, putting his empty beer bottle down with a clang that makes Rip wince and ambling toward the fridge for another one. After removing it, he pops the cap with a practiced motion before turning back toward them and taking a drink. “I took it.”

Rip opens his mouth, then shuts it, at a slight loss for words. Sara and Snart glance at each other with undecipherable expressions. Dr. Palmer is looking rather indignant.

“Then tell us what happened,” he says, sounding a bit demanding for the usually good-natured scientist. “Seriously.”

Mick snorts. “Sure, Haircut.” He surveys all of them. “Well. This asshat…” He jerks his thumb at Snart, who smirks. “…was outta town. We were kinda on the outs. And I see this fancy piece of sparkles in the news and think, ‘I’ll show him…’”


	2. Arsonist

**“Arsonist”**

It’s the best possible disguise, really, Mick thought a little proudly as he moved into the museum’s central gallery. The kind that almost makes a guy invisible.

Because who’d ever think that he, Mick Rory, would be not only be wearing a suit, but working as a security guard?

_“A suit?” Haircut asks in amusement. “How is that a disguise?”_

_“You ever see Mick in a suit, Boy Scout?”_

_“No?”_

_“Well?”_

It was even legit, more or less. The security company had been desperate to replace the dude who’d called in really sick only an hour before this dumb masquerade. They had no way of knowing that Mick had been the one to get the poor sod absolutely hammered at Saints and Sinners, with lots of extra shots in his drinks thanks to a bartender he’d been “friendly” with once upon a time—and then encouraged him to call in with dire predictions of how dangerous a job this could be.

The museum’s security director had seemed rather pissed at the use of an independent company and not his usual staff, but he’d still looked relieved as hell when a calm, experienced, oh-so-responsible replacement had showed up, supposedly sent from the “home office.” Mick smirked, adjusting his plain black domino mask. He wasn’t fond of that or the monkey suit, but they were required…and it would be worth it to pull this off…and then rub it in Snart’s face.

The pay-off when he found a buyer for this thing wouldn’t hurt, either.

There were already a few masquerade guests in the museum…which was sort of why the main guy had been so desperate to get someone to fill this job. And, in a stroke of luck—he knew Snart doesn’t believe in luck, but fuck ‘im—Mick was stationed right by the display case for the bit of sparkly he happens to have his eye on: this “Glacier Tiara” everyone was so abuzz about. (And wouldn’t Snart love that name?) The owner, some sort of business bigwig, had croaked only a day or two before, and now it’s drawing even more attention than before.

Mick ain’t big on “pretty,” really, but this thing was…well, sort of pretty. Sparkly in the way of the ridiculously pricey, with that big-ass blue stone right in the middle, it shone in the light even when enclosed in the display case here. Mick regarded it a long moment, then took up a position, arms folded and expression steely, right behind the case.

He didn’t have to worry about breaking into it right now.

_“Why not?”_

_“Let him tell the story, Ray.”_

More and more people wandered into and through the room, all in some sort of mask. Most tended toward the…what was the word? Abstract. Mick watched a couple in elaborate dragon masks—cool—pass, then turned his attention to a woman in a white feathered mask and then a dude in…fuck, was that supposed to be a Labrador?? _Why_?

Still, he didn’t let his attention wander too much. This was too important. He scowled at a fellow in a bronze-feathered owl mask, who’d paused to take a photo of the tiara with his phone, then watched him beat a hasty retreat.

The shindig continued. People continued filling the museum. The host stood next to Mick and spoke, blah, blah, blah. (Mick ignored him.) All he had to do was…

Fuck.

A woman’s voice rose in annoyance across the room, anger and indignation clear. Mick’s attention snapped to that area, and he watched the indistinct figures (hard to focus on through the shifting crowd) in motion. But he also waited, expecting another one of his “security” cohorts to take care of it.

But no one did. And the woman’s voice rose again.

Mick shifted uncomfortably, glancing around. Everyone was looking in that direction, a murmur rising from the crowd. Then he saw the security director enter from the front of the museum, looking around, and sighed inwardly in relief, expecting the other man to do something.

Of course, it didn’t work out like that. Fucker.

Instead, the other man met Mick’s eyes, jerking his head in the direction of the disturbance in a demanding kind of way. Mick hesitated, but…

Damn. If he hesitated or didn’t obey orders, the guy might be on to him, or at least wonder. He had to do it.

So, with a growl, Mick stalked across the floor, toward the woman who’d been yelling. He could see an indistinct white shape through the shifting crowd and pressed on, but…

When he got there, she was gone.

The man in the fuckin’ Labrador mask, though, gaped at him, then ducked his head in what seemed to be embarrassment, shoving something into his pocket. Well, whatever it seemed to be, it wasn’t a weapon. Mick growled at him, then turned on his heel and stalked back toward the display case.

Which the dick supervisor hadn’t bothered to even stand next to while he’d been gone, and now there were people all around it, concealing it from his sight.

Mick growled again, pushing forward quickly, guests scattering as they saw him coming. There was still one guy there, bent over the case, and...oh. The host himself glanced up at him in alarm, backing away, and Mick slowed. It wouldn’t do to get thrown out by the guy who was running this whole damned thing.

The tiara looked fine, and the host vanished into the packed museum. Mick took up his position again with a mutter, folding his arms and glaring indiscriminatingly at the crowd. The mingling rich folks pulled away, almost without realizing it, turning to talk about money or politics or whatever rich people talked about at things like this.

For a few minutes, he let himself watch and wonder. What _did_ they talk about? Mick liked to think about that at times. Then, sometimes, he wrote about it. Seemed like the only way he’d ever get inside this kind of life. (Which was just fine with him, really.)

Like the retriever mask…what the fuck was up with that? The couple talking in low voices over by a display of fancy necklaces, two women in feline masks, one inky black, one tawny. Was that an argument or some other kind of problem? There was the tall guy in the owl mask and the cheap suit again. He had a drink in his hand and was frowning around the room as if something had offended him. And there were the dragon masks again. And…ooh. A phoenix, was it?

Mick might not let on that he liked reading things like mythology, but he did. And he liked the idea of the phoenix. Burning up, turning to ashes, being reborn…

The band in the corner was playing now (definitely _not_ Mick’s kind of music) and some of the guests were dancing. Mick scowled a little as he saw the woman in the white-feathered mask whirl by in someone’s arms, though he didn’t get a good look at the person she was dancing with. Was that the flash of white he’d seen before? Was she the one who’d caused the disturbance?

Eh, it didn’t matter. He let his eyes fall to the tiara again, snug in its glass case. After the owner had died, there’d been stuff in the papers about how it was gonna be auctioned off here, but now there was some sort of a question about the will, so that’d been nixed. Mick didn’t care about that either, or wherever the thing was supposed to go. All he cared was that, when this shindig was done, he’d be the one to carry the sparkles here, all closed up in a secure box, down into the depths of the museum, and turn it over to the people who managed such things.

Well, that was the way things were _supposed_ to happen. He put a hand in his pocket, feeling the lighter there, and smirked a little. The best part about it was that he’d even be doing something completely legit, up to a point. When the smoke detectors went off, he’d be completely within the rules to take the item he was responsible for right to the nearest exit.

Once outside, though…

_“Err, ‘within the rules’ probably includes not setting fire to the museum in the first place…”_

_“Details, British.”_

The band kept playing. The guests kept dancing and talking and occasionally approaching Mick’s glass case to ogle the tiara. There was some sort of weird history to the thing, he knew, but he hadn’t really looked into anything besides the fact that it was worth a crap-ton. No one approached or seemed at all dangerous, so he simply glowered indiscriminately. And waited.

Everyone was supposed to unmask at midnight—except for security; they only had to wear the damn masks because the host had been worried about “the aesthetic.” Mick wrinkled his nose under the thing. Still, it served his purposes well enough.

He wasn’t sure if he was more annoyed that he felt the need to turn to Snart-type tactics for this or just pleased that it seemed to be going OK so far.

“_Snart-type tactics?”_

_“Actual planning. Am I right, Mick?”_

_“Was thinking more _ridiculous _planning, but sure.”_

_“Simply having a plan isn’t…”_

_“Seriously, you two? Mick, keep going with the story.”_

Mick was more than restless by the time the hour came—he wasn’t the patient sort, OK? While he’d watched the crowd intently, in part in keeping with his guise and in part because it was sort of interesting, he wanted things to move now. He wanted to get out of this mask and this monkey suit and admire the prize he’d planned and worked so hard for.

So, as the crowd counted down the seconds and then removed masks with a good deal of laughter and noise, he merely rolled his eyes and glared around indiscriminately, noticing how many people were locking lips as part of the festivities. Silly.

And then, the power flickered. And then, moments after it’d returned, it’d flagged again, going out for a span of seconds before returning.

There were gasps and giggles, and Mick blinked just a little uneasily, dropping his eyes to the case again. Nah, the tiara was still there. And…he looked around the room…so were all the rest of the things on display, far as he could tell.

Still, the host looked unnerved too—of course, he’d looked unnerved most of the night. Mick watched him cross the room toward the security director, bending the man’s ear with a weird look. The director straightened, clearly a little annoyed, though he wiped that look off pretty fast.

This whole bash was already supposed to end not so long after midnight anyway, and watching those two, Mick could take a guess what was coming next. The bigwig would want to clear everyone out before something could go wrong, especially with something odd goin’ on.

And...yep. The power flickered again, and the security director started looking around the room, signaling to Mick and his fellow not-quite-rent-a-cops to start herding the crowd out and moving the exhibits to safety. Mick smirked a little as he watched a number of the rich folks in their fancy clothes huffing and complaining as they were directed out and the host—who was moving across the room again, right toward Mick—started making his announcement that the event was now over.

But as entertaining as that could be, it was time for him to move too. He took a step back, giving himself room to work, and looked around, wondering...

And that’s when the power went out. And this time, it stayed out.

Someone shrieked, and the hubbub grew louder. Mick muttered to himself. Past time to move, apparently. He reached out to touch the case, just as someone jostled him with a faint cry, knocking him back, a move he returned with gusto, in a hurry to get this thing out of here. There were too many people crowded around it.

The exhibit case was kind of a nifty contraption, really. Working by feel alone, Mick reached down behind it and flipped a switch, releasing steel panels that folded up and around the clear glass case, which was only supposed to open with a special code that none of the rent-a-cops had. This made it a conveniently portable, supposedly secure package complete with handle. Another switch released it from the base, and he hid another smirk, hefting it before turning to carry it off to the vaults.

A flashlight shone in his eyes, briefly, drawing a curse. But it was just the host, who looked oddly pained but relieved that a member of security had the tiara and moved aside to let him pass.

No one else stopped him as he stepped past the nearby “staff” door and into the stairwell.

At the first landing down, though, Mick stepped out the door and into an area full of cubicles and hallways instead of continuing to descend. Office spaces, mostly, it seemed, dark and deserted. He hummed to himself as he sat the case down and pulled out the lighter, flicking it on and studying the bright flame for a long moment before picking up a piece of paper from one desk and holding the flame to it...and then dropping said paper, now ablaze, into a full wastepaper basket.

Then he picked up the case and continued sauntering off, toward a faintly glowing “exit” sign at the end of a corridor, doing his best to ignore the alluring crackle of flames in the background.

This would show Snart.

* * *

“And that’s how I stole the damned thing.” Mr. Rory glowers at all of them. “What? Didn’t think I could do it?”

The others, including Rip, look back at him. The captain opens his mouth, then shuts it, uncertain whether to comment at that moment. But...

“But...” Dr. Palmer says abruptly, mirroring Rip’s own thought. “What happened then?”

Mr. Rory snorts, but he looks a little unsettled. He glances at Snart, who merely lifts an eyebrow and stays oddly silent, then shrugs. “What’s it matter? It was a good plan.”

“But...” Sara echoes, leaning forward. “Did it _work_?”

There’s something in her voice. All eyes go to her, then back to Mr. Rory.

Who shrugs again—and then sighs.

“Well,” he mutters. “It _should _have...”

* * *

Once out of the museum, leaving chaos, fire sirens, and a discarded mask in his wake, Mick headed right back to a safe house, one that Snart had never favored, not that he was in town anyway. Once safely inside, he plopped the heavy case down on a scarred worktable, then hunted about for something with which to open it.

It took a few different tries and tools, but eventually one of the heavy metal sides sheered partly away, the thick glass inside cracking under pressure, and Mick pulled on a glove, reaching through the sharp edges to pull out the treasure within.

But there was no treasure.

There was nothing in the case at all.

* * *

“Wow,” Dr. Palmer says into the silence. “Plot twist!”

Mr. Rory glares at him, folding his arms. “I still stole it,” he mutters. “Someone just...stole it from me.”

Mr. Snart makes a thoughtful noise, and Rip shakes his head. “If you carried an empty case out of the museum,” he points out, “then that’s really all you stole.”

The glare transfers to him, but Sara chuckles then. “It was a good plan, Mick,” she says easily, getting to her feet and going over to the counter where...Rip sighs...yet another bottle of his scotch is sitting. (One of these days, they’re going to figure out where he’s stashed them all, and then what’ll happen?) “Too bad it didn’t work. But…”

Mr. Rory eyes her. “Something you wanna tell, Blondie?” he asks.

Sara doesn’t answer right away. She pours a healthy amount of scotch into her glass, then refills another—apparently Mr. Snart’s, given that she hands it to him as she returns to her seat. She takes a sip, then glances around.

Dr. Palmer’s apparently had enough. “Sara?” he asks plaintively. “Oh. Don’t tell me…”

Sara’s eyes dart toward him. But it’s Snart who chuckles, a low and amused sound.

“The guy who owned this tiara,” he says, staring into his glass of scotch, “he died suddenly a few days before this shindig. So Mick said.” His eyes flick up, and his voice lowers dramatically. “Suddenly. Mysteriously. And no one ever arrested for it…”

Sara smiles.


	3. Assassin

**“Assassin”**

The dress Sara was wearing was tight and black, but the mask was white, as white as snow.

She rather liked it, really, despite (or maybe because of) the contrast to her habitual black. The skillfully cut leather evoked feathers around her eyes, and a few longer, real feathers swept back over her left eye, mingling with the golden hair piled high on her head. She paused to look in one of the mirrors lining the museum’s entryway, studying her appearance, then turned away to smile at the man politely requesting her invitation.

It was even a legit invitation, even if the name on it wasn’t truly hers. The League had its fingers in many pies; obtaining one to this event had been simple.

Sara glanced around as she moved into the central gallery. She wasn’t one of the earliest ones at this masquerade, a supposed museum fundraiser that featured not only impressive and unusual exhibits from the museum’s vaults, but also loaned items from private owners. Other guests already thronged the galleries, in an array of colors and sometimes incredibly creative masks, and while Sara was aware that she was drawing some appreciative glances from men and women alike, no one approached her.

Just as well. She had a job to do here, a conclusion to the job she’d done a few days ago, and she didn’t need any distraction. The client wanted the so-called Glacier Tiara once owned by her last target, and while the League of Assassins was not generally a League of Thieves, sometimes such details made it into their contracts anyway. And Sara was very good at what she did.

_“Wait a minute! You…you were the one who…”_

_“Not real quick on the uptake are you, Haircut?”_

The host of the fundraiser, who was the head of the museum’s board of directors and known for his private collection, was standing against one wall, greeting some of the more notable attendees. To Sara’s practiced eye, he looked squirrelly, fidgeting and uncomfortable, though he did a good job of hiding it.

Did he know, or suspect, that someone might be coming for the tiara? Well, it was a gorgeous and valuable prize, and though Sara knew enough to be aware that he wasn’t the...originator...of her contract, that didn’t mean he didn’t suspect something.

_“But...Sara...”_

_“Raymond. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”_

She swept her gaze through the room, judging the patterns of the crowd and the swirl of movement, then made her way casually toward one corner, plucking a glass of champagne from the tray held by a passing waiter. She was fond enough of the plumage she wore, but there were far more brightly feathered birds here tonight. She’d fit in, not stick out too much.

_“But…”_

_“Ray. Do you _really _want a clear answer?”_

_“…no. You know what? No, I don’t.”_

There it was. Sara eyed the tiara from a distance, sipping her champagne. The glass case would be alarmed, but it was the sort that would also be adaptable for quick transport. And there was the security guard in question, a big guy (in a black domino mask like all the staff here tonight) who looked like he hated both his suit and everyone else in the room.

He looked like he’d actually be a good fight, which meant she should probably avoid him. Her role tonight was to be more covert than overt.

_Aw, Blondie, you say the nicest things._

_I call ‘em like I see ‘em, Mick. _

Sara got a good look at the tiara, feeling the big guy’s gaze move over her, then retreated a little, moving into the crowd, surveying the masks and the art, always trying to seem as though she was just on the verge of calling out to a friend or partner. Close to the last thing she needed was someone sweeping in and trying to play white knight to the poor lil’ woman all on her own.

Especially in a time and place in which she probably shouldn’t stab them.

The masks ranged from the gorgeous (those dragons!) to the sexy (those two ladies in sleek leather feline dominos...rowr...) to the, well, rather absurd. Sara disbelievingly studied a tall guy in a mask that resembled nothing so much as an ordinary Labrador retriever, who was chatting with the cat women, who were in turn watching him with an air of amused disbelief.

_“Geez, what do you guys have against dogs, anyway?”_

_“They’re just so...earnest...”_

Soon, the host for the evening, the same man she’d watched fidgeting earlier, officially welcomed them all to the event. He still looked a little uneasy, Sara decided, politely applauding along with the others, but maybe that was just nerves at having so much of his own collection here in the open too. She shrugged philosophically. It didn’t matter to her. She was just here for the job.

And speaking of...

Again, she studied the tiara in its case with its truculent guardian, then glanced around the room, pinpointing other security personnel both unobtrusive and obvious. She needed to get a good look at the set-up of the case without security eyeballing her, so a bit of a distraction was in order. One that would, of necessity, pull the big guy away from his sparkly charge.

_Huh. That _was _you!_

_Sorry, Mick. Look at it this way: I knew you’d be a problem otherwise. And I didn’t want to kick your ass in front of everyone._

_Thanks, Blondie. I think..._

OK...there. A spot with no apparent (to Sara’s discerning eye) inconvenient nearby security personnel. She strolled over, finishing her champagne along the way and snagging a fresh glass.

Hmm. There was dog guy again, peering intently down at some sort of gadget in his hands, ignoring the rest of the world. Some fancy smartphone? Sara considered him, shrugged, then took another slug of her champagne and strolled forward.

She was only a foot or so away from him when she whirled, laughing and waving with her free hand as if joking with a nearby friend, took another step back and turned again...crashing right into the guy, sending a splash of champagne everywhere. Mostly onto him.

_“Sara!”_

_“What?”_

_“It’s just...that’s rude!”_

_“Ray...”_

“Hey!” Sara yelled, doing her best impression of a slightly intoxicated woman utterly dedicated to passing the buck for her own clumsiness. “What the hell?! Why’d you run into me?”

The guy was frantically trying to shake the gadget dry, rubbing it on his sleeve and looking vaguely panicked. He glanced at her, blue eyes blinking behind the mask in bewilderment, almost as if trying to figure out if he _had _done anything wrong.

She could work with that.

Sara took another step closer, into his space again. “What on Earth were you doing?! You got champagne everywhere!” She brushed at her dress, making it look like she’d gotten much more doused than she actually had, while glancing unobtrusively around. It was hard to tell with the crowd, but she thought the big guy hadn’t budged.

The man glanced down at the gadget, eyes widening before glancing back up at her. “I...nothing? I was doing...nothing?” Rallying, he pulled an actual handkerchief out of a pocket, swapping it with the device, and tried to help her clean up.

Aw. He was actually kind of a gentleman. Too bad she was going to have to use that.

And he extended the handkerchief, Sara made a very calculated move forward, then froze with his hand effectively down her dress.

Then she shrieked.

Oh, heads were turning now. The poor guy turned beet red, snatching his hand back...leaving the handkerchief where it was. Sara stifled a giggle, then shrieked again, following it up with a resounding slap that sent him back a pace.

_“But...but...”_

_“One of the mottos of the League: use whatever tools are to hand.”_

_“You should appreciate that, Boy Scout.”_

The man gaped at her, hand rising to touch his face in disbelief and then glancing around as if to protest his innocence. But Sara was already turning to stalk away, every inch the indignant victim. As she did, she saw the big guy moving toward them.

Ah ha.

Plucking the handkerchief from her cleavage with a smirk and letting it drift to the floor, Sara lost herself in the crowd, circling around toward the tiara in its case. The crowd was thick at this point and it was fairly easy to conceal herself, though that also worked against her in another way—it wasn’t easy to get close enough to get a good look at the case.

And as she did, the host himself—Gladstone? No, no, Freestone, that was the name—stepped in the way, blocking the case from view, placing a black drape in the way as he hunkered over it, presumably to keep people from seeing the unlocking mechanism. Sara stopped, eyes narrowed, as she tried to figure out what the man was up to—but when he pulled the drape back and stood up just a moment later, the tiara was still in place, looking just the same. Just testing it, perhaps? While the guard was away?

Sara shrugged, then drifted away again, irritated at the loss of the chance. Well, she’d wait for another—and in the meantime, she could check out the other cases as well.

Thoughtfully, she wandered amidst the exhibits for a bit, admiring them and the artwork on the walls. There was a dagger she particularly liked, something a little too ornate to be truly useful in combat, though it seemed to have a wicked edge and was certainly worth a mint. (There was an interesting story about it, too, if she remembered correctly, concerning events only a year ago.) Its guard didn’t seem to mind her studying it carefully, and she managed to unobtrusively inspect the mechanism of the case, too, while she pretended to study the intricate detail of the gemstones.

Yes, there were two parts to it, she thought. One that would release the case from the base for transport and one that would open the glass case itself. Looked like anyone could do the former if they were shown how and could get close enough, but the latter needed a trick or a key or...something. A tiny red light shone in one corner, apparently indicating that it was safely locked down. Maybe it had to be unlocked digitally.

She rose from her inspection of case and dagger, smiling politely at the guard, then turned away. A band was playing now, and many people were dancing. Sara considered. Finding a dance partner would help her fly under the radar for a while in some ways as well as pass time, but that advantage was paired with the risk of gaining someone’s concerted attention. She’d have to find the right person…

A woman would be less likely to give her issues afterward, but she didn’t think this venue was quite ready for that…at any rate, it’d draw rather too much attention. And she didn’t want someone who seemed like they were seeking a chance to hook up. Damaging an overly determined suitor really wasn’t her goal here. Maybe…

“May I have this dance?”

Startled and mortified by it—Ra’s would have come up with quite a punishment if he saw how she’d let this stranger sneak up on her and, hell, so would Nyssa—Sara jerked her head to the left, glaring at the tall figure standing there for a heartbeat before modulating the expression into something rather less deadly.

Well, then.

He might have managed to startle her, but this guy did manage to fill out a suit _quite_ nicely. Bespoke, her trained eye told her, and he was wearing it with an easy grace and insouciance that made it all the more attractive.

Annoyingly, she couldn’t see his eyes, which were mostly hidden behind some sort of sheer fabric in the eyeholes of his mask, which was a…a wolf? No, a fox, Sara thought, letting herself smile. A silver fox. Fitting, from what she can see. There was a very slight bit of salt-and-pepper scruff on his chin, and the mobile-seeming mouth was bent into a wry smile.

_“Geez, Blondie, you sound like you were deciding whether to have this dude for dinner.”_

_“Maybe I was, Mick. Maybe I was.”_

“How’d you know I was thinking about dancing?” she asked, glancing down at the hand he was extending to her but not taking it yet. (Long, nimble fingers, a few tiny scars, calluses. This man was not one of the idle rich, no matter how well he wore a very pricey suit.)

That earned her a smooth one-shouldered shrug and a slight twist of that wry mouth. “You _were_ pretty focused on the dancing,” he pointed out in a pleasantly low voice, and Sara fought back annoyance at the reminder of her distraction. “You looked, maybe, a bit…wistful. And I am, if I may say, not bad on my feet. Might be fun.”

An easy arrogance, there, but not, Sara thought, studying him further, a dangerous one. There was a thread of humor in that gorgeous voice, and it was just as attractive as the rest of the package.

So, she made a quick decision, though it was almost certainly the wrong one. She _should_ pick someone less observant and far less intelligent.

Instead, she reached out and took the man’s hand, letting him pull her nearer.

Not too near, though. He left them a distance that was not too far for dancing purposes but not too close for near-strangers. Sara hummed in appreciation, settling her other hand at his shoulder while his other hand curved at her waist. Not too familiar, not too tentative.

It’s really too bad she wasn’t here merely to have fun. Because she was starting to think there was some to be found here.

Just a hunch.

For a few moments, though, Sara just let herself enjoy the music and the dance. This wasn’t her preferred form of either art, but it wasn’t like she got much of a chance to enjoy any of it, in the League. Even Nyssa, as much as Sara loved her, simply didn’t get it.

She frowned a little, dragged back to earlier thoughts of going off the grid here, vanishing into the city and then making her way…home.

If it was still home.

“Why the frown?” inquired that low, sexy voice, and Sara belatedly glanced up again at her dance partner. His mouth twitched a little at her expression. “Really, I’m not criticizing, but if you’d like to stop…”

“No.” Sara sighed. “No, sorry, it’s not that.” She studied him a longer moment, sensing a certain sympathy. “Just…homesick.”

“Ah.” That got her a nod. “I get that.”

He didn’t ask her what her home city was, nor offered up his own. Sara appreciated that more than she could admit. She watched him a moment as they moved easily together, then volleyed back a question.

“So, what brought _you_ here tonight?”

Another twitch of that expressive mouth. “I…” The voice dipped, and she sensed a flicker of the eyes behind the mask, though she couldn’t quite see them. “I enjoy beautiful things.”

Now, that was just the near side of innuendo. Sara laughed without meaning to and got a ready smirk in response. “Oh, smooth.”

“I try.”

“Yes, you’re apparently _very_ trying.”

A chuckle was the only response, but it made her smile.

_“Can we dispense with the flirtation and get on with the story?”_

_“I’m telling it; I’ll focus on what on I want, Rip.”_

The band segued right into another song and Sara’s partner didn’t seem inclined to stop, though she thought she sensed a brief pause in their motion. Enough for her to pull away gracefully if she wanted to. She didn’t want to.

Perhaps a bad idea. Oh, well.

“So, you’re…what? A collector?” she hazarded after another moment, studying the matte silver of his leather mask, which is truly a work of art itself. “Of beautiful things?”

The mystery man tilted his head, apparently studying her in return.

“Sometimes,” he acknowledged. “Sometimes simply an…admirer.”

“And are any of the pieces here yours?”

A long laugh. “Not _yet_.”

Sara eyed him, wondering if that had been meant as more innuendo or something else.

“I’ll warn you,” she said mock-playfully, “I’m not completely alone here.” Yes, she was, unless she counted the shadowy force of the League behind her. “And I’m far more dangerous than I look.” And that, of course, was no lie at all.

The man gave her the shadow of a smile. “Now, that,” he said, turning her just a little as they passed the tiara (Sara gave it a wistful glance), “I totally believe.”

The tone was hard to read, but something told her he wasn’t just humoring her. Which was good…or bad. Was he plainclothes security? He hadn’t tripped any of her alarm bells that way. There was something of his grace that reminded her of the League, but it wasn’t quite…

He interrupted her thoughts again, as the music started slowing, coming to an end, and Sara realized she’d been staring. “Going to be in town long?”

His voice had gone down another octave. Was he…

Oh, if Sara wasn’t mistaken, oh yes, he was.

_“Blondie, we don’t need to hear about this!”_

_“Deal with it, Mick.”_

“Leaving tonight,” she said, letting a thread of regret into her voice as the last notes played and they slowed to a stop. “Right after this. I have…somewhere to be.” Sort of.

Her mystery man inclined his head, removing his hand from her hip even as he continued to hold her other hand. “Pity,” he said, and she saw that wry smile again. “Thank you for the dance, birdy.”

He bowed over her hand, and Sara half-expected him to kiss her fingers…but no. Then he was gone, away into the crowd, and there was one more fragile possible connection lost in her life.

Assassins weren’t supposed to have connections to anyone, anything, other than the League.

So why did she feel such a pang of regret now?

Sara turned away after a moment, yanking her focus back on track ruthlessly. She needed to figure out how to get into one of these cases.

She grabbed another drink and started drifting again. She wasn’t really doing her job well here tonight—just not focused enough—and Ra’s would be quite unhappy with her if he knew.

She didn’t really care. And wasn’t that a dangerous thought?

So, she wandered some more. She struck up a conversation with the two women in cat masks—who, as it turned out, hadn’t had nearly as many qualms about dancing together at the event as Sara had. She studied some photographs, wondering what would have happened if she’d continued her photography classes back in the day. She listened in attentively on a group conversation about the stories about the tiara itself, which apparently had quite a history. She switched to ginger ale, then back to champagne a few glasses later.

Then she sighed, taking a drink, and scanned the room again.

Oh, there was the host, walking stiffly away from a tall, thin man in an owl mask and a suit that looked just a touch out of place. Sara watched, intrigued at Freestone’s indignant body language, then focused on the owl man, who shrugged, clearly unimpressed, tugged at his suit coat as if it wasn’t lying quite right—well, it wasn’t—and turned away.

Only to run right into dog guy, who had been walking across the room, staring down intently at his gadget once again.

Sara winced as said gadget flew out of the man’s hands, landing hard and skidding across the floor. Its owner blinked, then dove after it, even as owl man spoke. An apology, from what she could hear, though he didn’t stop moving away.

The other man picked up the device, gave it a look, then shot a dirty expression toward the retreating offender. Sara snickered a little, shaking her head and turning away, catching herself looking for Mr. Fox again.

She didn’t see him. But her eyes did glance over another exhibit case—this one holding an ornate golden Celtic armband.

The light at the base—which she’d noticed just a few minutes ago had been red just like all the others—was green.

_“What! But...”_

_“Shush, Haircut. I wanna hear.”_

Sara froze, eyes on it. Then, very carefully, she turned away, sipping champagne, moving back toward the tiara.

The light there was green, too. But no one, including the security guard, seemed to have noticed.

Sara weighed options in her head, even as she looked away, trying not to call any attention to it. How long did she have? She’d rush the big guy if she had to, but it certainly wasn’t the best way of playing this.

But…it was almost midnight.

In fact, people were starting to gather for the unmasking, the noise level rising with happy chatter that was assuredly partly fueled by the free-flowing champagne. In a way, that was good—security was definitely watching the massed crowd and not the random outliers such as herself. In a way, though, it was bad, because she’d be that much more obvious if she made a move.

When. _When _she made a move, not _if_. She had a job to do. Right?

Sara moved closer to the tiara, mind working furiously. Around her, people started counting down at a full minute, much like it was New Year’s Eve and not just a masquerade on a random Saturday in October. Sara wondered briefly if couples were going to kiss—and if she was going to have to knife anyone for taking liberties after all—then turned to survey more of the room.

“...48...47...46...45...”

And then her silver fox was standing there, only a few feet away, eyeing her with that smile-smirk on his lips and head tilted to the side as if in inquiry.

The invitation was clear.

There was temptation. Oh, hell, there was temptation. Not just to give in to a moment’s attraction, but also to...what? To abandon this stupid mission that wasn’t even really what she was trained for?

“...23...22...21...20...”

To leave...not just the museum or the city, but the League, to go back to Starling like she’d been dreaming, to check on her family, to...

Sara closed her eyes, trying to find her balance. The crowd grew louder.

“...TEN...NINE...EIGHT...”

“You OK?”

She opened her eyes. Mr. Fox was standing there in front of her, but not like he was pressuring her. He almost looked concerned.

The kindness undid her.

“...THREE...TWO...ONE...”

Oh, fuck it.

Sara didn’t bother taking her mask off, but she did move forward even as the stranger leaned forward a little too, startling both him and herself, pressing her lips against his for a brief, scorching kiss (the taste of mint and just a touch of champagne) before pulling back quickly. They stared at each other through their respective masks, and Sara could feel the heat in her face rise.

And the power flickered.

Nervous laughter rose around them, and Sara froze, glancing around. Then it happened again, this time leaving the room in utter darkness for a few seconds.

When the power came back on, the noise level was much higher and laced with more concern. Sara looked over toward Mr. Fox, feeling a pang as she realized he'd vanished once again, then looked at the tiara in its case. The guard looked concerned, but he was watching the room more than the case itself.

The power flickered again. In her peripheral vision, Sara saw the other security guards start moving. The host was, too, heading in their direction even while raising his voice to declare the event over.

And then the power went out, with an air of finality, leaving the scene in pitch blackness.

Sara _moved_.

By feel alone, she reached for the case’s latch, only to...ah _ha_...find someone else with their hand in the open case already. But she had her smallest knife, the one that’d been concealed among the feathers of her mask, in her hand, and the offending hand was jerked back as its owner yelped and stumbled—apparently into the security guard, who audibly growled and shoved back.

But Sara, meanwhile, had closed her fingers around the tiara in its case, pulling it back toward herself and folding her arms around it and herself like she was scared or cold, stepping back and letting herself immediately be caught up in the crowd as people moved for the door.

She saw the flicker of a light—nothing big, maybe a flashlight?—in the edge of her vision, but she didn’t look back. She had the tiara, and there was no outcry yet, and she’d head back to the League just as she should. For now.

Sometimes, our decisions were made for us.

* * *

“So, that happened.” Sara gives her teammates a small smile, fiddling with her glass and then taking another drink. “Sorry, Mick.”

Rip halfway expects the other man to be irritated, but the arsonist merely looks at her a moment, then grunts, taking a drink himself.

"I’d like to know who had his hand in the cookie jar to start with,” he mutters. “I mean, that must have been pretty fuckin’ fast.” He holds up his drink in a sort of salute to Sara. “You tagged whoever it was, Blondie. There was a streak of blood in the case.”

Sara shrugs. “I have no idea. A man, I think. Someone who’d been nearby and moved in immediately. That suggests planning or just desperation.” A shadow crosses her expression. “About as much as mine. I wound up leaving the League not so long after that, actually. I came close to walking away that night.”

“Why?” Everyone glances over at Snart, who’s watching Sara intently. (Well, Rip thinks, he’s almost always doing that.)

“Clearly, you weren’t that into the mission,” he tells her, taking a long sip of his scotch. “But what happened...after?”

Sara eyes him in return. But then, Dr. Palmer speaks up too.

“Yeah, then what happened, Sara?” he asks eagerly. “I mean...with the tiara?”

Mick scowls at him as Sara continues her stare down with Snart. “Whadda you mean, Haircut?”

“The tiara. Did you take it back to the League?

Rip can’t help himself. “You did, didn’t you?” He nods as Sara transfers her gaze to him. “What happened?”

Sara sighs.

* * *

“This isn’t real.”

Sara, back in her League garb, stared as Ra’s al Ghul held up the tiara, which she’d so carefully smuggled back from Central City. “What?” she whispered, despite knowing there was no sort of protest or excuse that would do her any good here. “I took it right from the case. It...”

Ra’s watched her with a stony expression for a moment, then transferred his attention back to the jewelry. “It is a very good fake,” he pronounced. “The materials are such that it even has value in its own right. But it is _not _the Glacier Tiara.”

Nyssa was standing right at her father’s side, watching Sara too, but there was no flicker of sympathy in her eyes. She couldn’t show it, not here and now.

Not even to Sara.

Ra’s studied the artifact a moment more. “I should not have allowed the man who contracted us to add this into the contract,” he said finally. “We are not thieves.” He lowered the tiara, placing it back into the lined case before him. “However, he valued it as a trophy rather than for sale, and the American newspapers are now reporting that the tiara _was _stolen. We will tell him that this is the piece that was on display, which is truth.”

He met Sara’s eyes then, gaze cold and hard as stone, and she dropped her own eyes immediately, going to a knee in penance. She’d failed a contract, no matter what the reason was. The League couldn’t let that go...

“You will be punished.”

Sara bowed her head...and thought, again, about freedom. “Yes, Ra’s al Ghul.”

* * *

“You stole a fake.” Mick’s words are thoughtful. “There was a fake in the case anyway?” He shakes his head, then reaches over and takes Sara’s scotch, downing it before she can protest. “Huh.”

Sara gives him a weary look, then rubs a hand over her face. “Yes,” she says shortly. “I did.” She sighs again, shaking her head as if chasing away memories, then focuses on Dr. Palmer.

“Wait a minute,” she says after a moment. “How did you know?”

“I just...” The inventor looks a bit shifty. It’s not, Rip thinks, an easy look on him.

“Raymond.” Snart, who’d risen to go get Sara another glass, speaks up then as he hands it to her. “Answer the lady.”

Dr. Palmer pauses, then gives them all a long and rather hangdog look.

And then says, simply and with great reproach, “Woof.”


	4. Inventor

**“Inventor”**

Ray still didn’t know how the heirs of Dr. Timothy Hobbs, the recently late former owner of the Glacier Tiara, had managed to track him down so quickly or how they’d suspected he’d be a sympathetic ear.

But here he was. Trying to help, because it was the right thing to do.

Wasn’t it?

He ran a finger under the edge of his mask gingerly, just a little uncomfortable with the notion of wearing it. He just...wasn’t a mask sort. Not even this mask, which he’d picked up from an artist during a visit to Nickel City just before Halloween last year.

Anna had laughed when she saw it...and said that, of course, he, Ray Palmer, would choose—from a selection of exotic, colorful, handmade masks depicting all manner of creatures—a cheerful-looking, utterly ordinary Labrador retriever, completely with floppy ears and finely tooled leather fur edged with gold paint.

_“Haircut! You were...”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Oh, shit, Ray. I’m sorry.”_

_“It’s OK, Sara. You didn’t know.”_

He’d brought Anna a slightly fancier one, a mask made of pieced-together leather leaves that made her look like an impish forest sprite, and they’d worn them to her firm’s Halloween party not long after. That’d been kind of fun.

This wasn’t fun, really. Anna was back in Starling City, busy with work, while Ray was here, in Central, preparing to do something that really went against all his usual standards.

Hobbs had, by all accounts Ray could find, been a real jerk. He’d made his money in all sorts of questionable ways, and his heirs hadn’t been grieving him all that much—though they'd done their best to convince Ray they were. Still, the tiara had been a family heirloom—with some sort of fanciful family legend at its origin—and the questions over recent changes to Hobbs’ will meant that this Edward Freestone, an old friend of his, might well keep his hands on the piece the family was saying he’d merely “borrowed” for this exhibition.

In fact, Freestone had originally planned an auction for the tiara tonight, trying to make money off it before any challenges to the will could go through, though the family’s lawyers had managed to quash that. Ray shook his head, still uncomfortable with his purpose here, but that—that just wasn’t right.

The family—well, Hobbs’ two kids, a son and daughter—hadn’t been content to let the lawyers continue trying to handle things that way, though. They wanted their family heirloom back before it could vanish just like it’d apparently once mysteriously appeared.

And who better to retrieve it for them, they’d reasoned, than the man who’d invented the museum’s security system?

_“Seriously, Boy Scout?”_

_“Well, yeah. I mean, it’s kind of old news now, but at the time, the Barghest system was top of the line. Really tough to hack—Felicity was really impressed, she said even she couldn’t get into one back in the day—but simple enough for non-tech employees to operate. It started when I’d been puttering around with some...”_

_“Can we get back on track, please?”_

_“Oh. Sorry.”_

An invitation to the event had been easy to get. The museum’s in-house security staff hadn’t been approved overtime for the masquerade, so Freestone had contracted an independent security company, something the museum’s security director had been distinctly unhappy about. Freestone was also ignoring every warning the director had given him.

And when the cheerful fellow who’d once trained that director and his people on the high-tech new security system had called him up, carefully inquiring about Freestone’s fancy event—well, he’d been more than willing to get him an invite.

And then more than willing to throw his hat in, just a little, on a scheme to make Freestone look foolish indeed. Maybe that wasn’t Ray’s main goal, but if it worked...

_“All right, you’ve _got _to be kidding me.”_

_“What? It’s true!”_

_“The security dude just wound up being your buddy. Right.”_

_“Hey, I’m nice to people. They remember me.”_

Ray had arrived early, the better to speak to Frank Doyle—the security director—for a few moments. The older man smiled to see him, but it was a rather harried smile, and it took a few moments before he hurried over from talking to two other people in suits and black domino masks, apparently directing them to their places.

“My people know this museum inside and out, and they know how everything works,” he told Ray under his voice, shaking his head. “But, no...it’s cheaper to hire an outside company than pay overtime, or so they say. These folks seem OK, but they don’t know the system, they don’t know the layout...”

Ray gave him a sympathetic smile. “This...” He lowered his own voice. “...isn’t going to make you look too bad, is it?”

Doyle rolled his eyes. “At this point, I don’t care if it does,” he said with a sigh. “Maybe someone will listen to me for once. Or they’ll show me the door, and I’ll go find someplace that actually pays attention when I give them advice.”

Ray brightened. “Tell you what. That happens, drop me a line. I’ll help you out.”

“That’s nice of you, Dr....” Doyle checked himself. “Ah, Mr. Shaw, is it? I appreciate that.” He nodded, then glanced around again. “They wound up sending a new guy with the crew I’d already expected, a sub. I put him on the...the item. He knows less about how the system works even than the others. Maybe that’ll help you out.”

_“Hey!”_

_“Sorry, Mick. It wasn’t just luck after all.”_

_“Told you.”_

_“Shut it, Snart.”_

"Well, that shouldn’t be an issue.” Ray grinned at him. “But the less you know about that, the better, right?”

“I s’pose that’s true.” Doyle nodded again, then glanced. “I gotta go herd this crew into something resembling order. Good luck, Mr....Shaw.”

“And you too.” Ray watched as the man crossed toward the entryway, where more people were starting to arrive, then paused as he noticed Freestone, who was standing against the wall, looking irritable.

Even with the mask, probably better not to attract his attention. Ray turned and headed into the galleries, smiling at other guests, deciding to be sociable and try to learn more about the exhibits—the other exhibits—and artwork. He really didn’t need to be here, as in the main galleries of the museum, for very long at all. But he might as well make good use of the time.

_“Wait, what do you mean you didn’t need to be there?”_

_“Oh, _now _you want me to explain things?”_

The thing was, Ray had done most of the work before he’d even come here. He’d sat in his hotel room at the CC Ritz the past few nights—focused on his laptop except for calls to Anna—and read about the Glacier Tiara and its background. And then he hacked into Gladstone’s bank accounts and email accounts and checked some things.

And then he snuck into the security system he’d created, the one documenting and protecting the collection—both permanent and temporary—of the Central City Museum of Art and Antiquities and found the entry for the Glacier Tiara.

And for the detailed and expensive (but not as rare or _as _expensive) replica Freestone had also entered into the system, to be used as a decoy for the real thing.

Ray went back and studied the man’s (deleted) emails to his museum board vice president, in which he’d asserted that—given the “unique situation” surrounding the piece of jewelry and the legal issues and other, unnamed details, the decoy was necessary, especially during the event. It’d apparently been done in relative secrecy, with Freestone adroitly justifying everything, and even Doyle and the rest of the museum board didn’t know.

Ray had nibbled his lip, turning the situation over in his mind.

Freestone had a decoy tiara. And, for now, the real tiara as well.

And he wanted to keep the real thing. But with the impending court challenge, that wasn’t sure at all.

If Freestone—who’d also made sure that the security at the museum that night wouldn’t be those who knew the museum well—intended to take the real tiara off the playing field during the event, as the Hobbs heirs suspected, it’d make sense for him to have it out in the open and vulnerable, instead of locked up securely in the vaults. Right?

Ray nodded to himself. And then he swapped the entries in the museum security system, flip-flopping the fake and the real tiaras. Making sure the real tiara would be down there, waiting for him, when he went for it.

_“So, it was your fault!”_

_“Ow! Sara, it belonged to those kids. They remembered their mom and grandma telling them stories about it…”_

_“So, why didn’t you just go grab it immediately, Boy Scout?”_

_“Well…you see…I could only do so much off-site…”_

Ray always kept the stuff he tinkered with, even when it didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason and Anna sighed at the mess and shook her head. (Though then she’d kiss him and tell him she loved how his mind worked.) And now, small enough to be up his sleeve, there was a small gadget made of some of those odds and ends, purposefully made to let him control this type of system, the one he’d created.

It didn’t have a huge range, though. He had to be here, inside this section of the museum and not so far from the computers running things, to use it. And one thing about this event…the sheer amount of people made it possible to fly under the radar a little more when doing so.

Ray, pausing unobtrusively (he hoped) in a corner, checked the various security settings and power levels. He’d started a reset earlier, but it was still in progress.

Well, then. Time to mingle.

Somewhat disappointingly, the waitstaff strolling around with hors d’oeuvres didn’t know what was and wasn’t gluten free. Ray sighed, then decided to dare one glass of champagne. Turning to survey the room, he smiled to himself at all the colorful masks. Anna would have liked seeing this.

He missed her.

_Into a moment of silence: “You loved her very much, didn’t you, Dr. Palmer?”_

_“Yeah. Yeah, I did. And…I expect I always will.”_

If Ray didn’t miss his mark, in fact, some of the masks he saw tonight were creations of the same artist who’d made his. He noticed two feline masks in particular and happily strolled over to talk to their wearers, a married pair of ladies from Nickel City who confirmed his supposition and seemed pleased to talk about their hometown with him.

He bade them farewell, though, and moved carefully away when Freestone moved to the center of the room and began welcoming the guests. He’d met the man before, after all, and though his mask concealed his face fairly well, Ray didn’t want to risk it. He sidled toward the farthest area of the room and waited, applauding when others did, then moved back to the central area with a sigh when Freestone moved on.

He wanted to see this tiara for himself.

Ray didn’t want to get too close and be noticed by its security guard, who looked, quite frankly, like he wouldn’t mind a fight. There was nothing at all to indicate that the piece of jewelry was actually a fake, and he had to wonder how anyone would actually know without doing the sort of specific testing the Hobbs’ heirs had mentioned.

He was about to dare a slightly closer look when his device beeped quietly. The security reset was complete.

Ray had halfway expected a power surge, so he breathed a quiet sigh of relief at that. Then he moved back into an area he’d noticed didn’t have a lot of security oversight and set to making sure reset had done its job.

But maybe he let himself get a little too engrossed in the puzzle, because an indeterminate amount of time later, he was totally jolted out of his concentration by…champagne?

And then, by an extremely loud, shrill shriek, delivered at close range by a short woman in a white, feathered mask and a black dress.

“What the heck!” she yelled, at fairly close range. “Why’d y’run into meeee?”

_“Ouch! Sara!”_

_“I did _not_ sound like that!”_

_“You…you kinda did…”_

Ray tried to split his attention between carefully trying to wipe off the device before the liquid could damage it and wondering how to appease this…this…

_“This _what_?”_

_“I wasn’t going to be mean!”_

…this angry lady, who really looked kind of dangerous, if Ray didn’t miss his mark. He gave her what he knew was probably a slightly frantic glance. “I…” he said, trying to figure out what had just happened. “Um…”

He wasn’t thinking fast enough. She moved closer. How did someone so short _loom_ so well? “WhatonearthwereyouDOING?”

“Sorry…I…”

“You got my booze everywhere!” Her voice rose again, and she held out her arms, looking down at her…

…very, very tight, low-cut dress. Ray felt his face grow hot and he jerked his gaze back up, feeling like a real heel. He sputtered something, looking at the device, which seemed OK, then back up, sputtering some more.

Whatever he was saying, she didn’t seem impressed. In fact, she loomed some more. How did she _do_ that?!

_“Practice.”_

_“Well, it’s _really_ effective.”_

Well…at least he could try to help. Ray pocketed the device, pulling out his handkerchief (Boy Scout motto: be prepared!) and offered it to her.

Or tried.

Right as he reached out, she stepped closer. And Ray found himself with a hand…um…

“_Sara, I’m so sorry.” “Ray. I just admitted I was utterly playing you here. Seriously?”_

_“That’s no excuse. I should have…”_

_“Boy Scout?”_

_“What?”_

_“Stop while you’re ahead.”_

As the woman shrieked…again…Ray pulled his offending hand back, feeling his face going even more scarlet. He tried to apologize, but then staggered as a fairly effective open-handed slap rocked him backward.

Ow.

For a moment, all he could do was put a hand to his face and blink. And before he could say anything else, his white-masked attacker turned and walked haughtily away, still fully in command of the situation, leaving him gaping behind her.

And she took his best handkerchief with her.

Drat.

For a moment, though, Ray was just happy to get away relatively unscathed. He took a deep breath, knowing he was still bright red and that people were still staring at him, then pulled the device out of his pocket, checking things.

And then he heard a growl.

Oh. Uh oh.

The security guard, the big one who’d been standing guard over the tiara, was glaring at him, still growling, again at fairly close range, very obviously irritated at having to leave his post.

Wait. Why _had_ he left his post? Ray stared, wondering, then suddenly realized he was gaping at one of the people who could utterly ruin his plan of his. He hastily stuffed the device away again, giving the big guy an uncertain grin…but the guard was already walking away, leaving Ray confused and relieved behind him, back toward the tiara, which was surrounded by people. Including Freestone. Uh oh.

The good news, though, was that the reset had worked. And now, well, he just had to wait.

For a moment, Ray considered putting the next phase of his plan into place early. He’d reset the system to the point where all the settings were back to the way he’d created them, and he should have nearly complete control now. It’d still take a few minutes to open the vault doors and the actual safe for the tiara, but it shouldn’t be difficult.

But. While that meant he could take the system down, in whole or in part, both in the vaults and in the gallery, it meant there was an excellent chance someone would realize what he’d done before the event ended. Better, perhaps, to wait, to confuse things with the activity later in the evening. He nodded to himself.

But that meant he’d have to linger, avoiding Freestone and white-mask lady and any other trouble. Surely, he could do that. Right?

_“You ain’t done great at it so far.”_

_“Gee, thanks, Mick.”_

The band was playing now. Maybe someone would like to dance? Ray looked around hopefully, but there didn’t seem to be any likely contenders. Even white-mask lady was now dancing with someone in a mask he couldn’t quite see, and the nice cat ladies from Nickel were dancing together.

He wished Anna was here.

Well, there was still a lot to look at. Ray started toward one part of the room, then put on the brakes as he saw Freestone there. The host was looking around as if searching for someone, barely acknowledging the conversation of…oh, that was the Central City mayor…as he did so. And…huh. He was holding a small, gray case, something that Ray hadn’t noticed earlier, clutching it with both hands like it held the Hope Diamond.

Ray paused. Then he glanced over his shoulder.

The tiara was still in its case with its glowering guard.

Huh.

Well. Ray sidled toward another gallery, away from Freestone, then picked up the pace when the man looked around again. Maybe he’d go look at the paintings for a while. Find someone else to talk to.

_“We’re not going to have to listen to a recap of you trying to mingle and babbling at every person who doesn’t run away fast enough, are we, Boy Scout?”_

_“Excuse me? I’m a _very_ good conversationalist.”_

_‘Ray?”_

_“Sara?”_

_“Maybe just…abbreviate it a bit…”_

Time passed. As it grew closer to midnight, Ray started the process to get himself into the vault, glancing around furtively as he did so. But no one was really paying any attention to him, and…well…maybe the reset system was proving a little recalcitrant…

“Oof!”

For the second time that day, he was jerked out of his focus by another stranger, this one also running into him at a good clip, knocking the device out of his hands and sending it flying across the floor. Ray caught his breath and then scrambled after it, barely registering his assailant as the stranger said something, sounding rather annoyed, and didn’t even stop to see if he was OK.

_“Assailant? That’s a bit much, wouldn’t you say, Dr. Palmer?”_

_“Hey, I had a bruise on my arm for weeks! Well…a day or two, anyway.”_

Fortunately, the device seemed to be OK, and the test he’d been running on the vault was still going with no harm done. In fact, it was nearly done. Ray moved away from the noise of the galleries, skulking (he wasn’t really good at skulking) down a dark hallway as he watched it. And…

There.

Grinning, he looked around, back toward the event, where people were starting to celebrate the approach of midnight and the unmasking. Then he tucked the device away again, reached for the door leading downstairs, and yanked it open. Not even a blink in the alarm. Ha!

He clattered down the stairs, counting down in his head like the folks upstairs were doing to midnight, descending one flight, then another. Then he ducked through another set of doors and paused, getting his bearings.

And the power flickered.

Ray blinked. The power blinked again as if in response, staying out for a few seconds that time.

It was already fairly dark down there. For those seconds, he was illuminated in nothing but the dim safety lights in this remote and deserted part of the museum. Soon enough, there’d be people here, bringing exhibits back and tucking them away.

The power came back on. Ray breathed a sigh of relief, but it was mixed with worry. Not only was he running out of time, he had to wonder…

He pulled the device out and looked at it.

Oh, hell. He was the one causing these power blips, as the system (very well constructed, if he did say so himself) sensed an issue and tried to reset again. And it could very well get worse, especially since he still had to get the tiara.

Ray ran down the hallway, looking for the right door as the power flickered again. There! He darted into the room and scanned the small, safe-like cubbies. Found the one with the ID number 12116. And pulled out the device again, taking a deep breath and hitting a button.

The power went out.

And Ray reached out, grabbing the lever on the right cubby and yanking it open.

* * *

“So, I’m really sorry about all the inconvenience, with the power outage and all.” Dr. Palmer grins, glancing around at his teammates. “But you have to admit, it was a pretty nice job, getting in there, even when the system was fighting me to do its job.” He buffs his nails against his shirt, trying (badly, Rip thinks) to look modest. “It was a good system. It’s a bit old now, of course, but…”

“Wait a middle,” Sara says, though, leaning forward, tapping her fingers on the counter. “How did you get out? And the Hobbs heirs just stayed quiet about all this?” She glances around, getting equally dubious looks from Mr. Rory and Mr. Snart. “I mean, after the tiara vanished, wasn’t there a to-do in the courts? There was; I was still following all the news about it.”

Dr. Palmer glances away. “Well…”

Mr. Rory laughs. “You’re a lousy liar, Haircut,” he says, sounding just a bit gleeful. “What happened? You get caught?”

“No! I just…well…”

* * *

There was nothing there.

Ray stared down into the safe, which was lit only by the vault safety lights now. Still nothing. No tiara. The original should have been safely here all evening, waiting for him, but…there was no mistake. It wasn’t.

What had happened? Had someone caught on to his original switch? Was the original now up in the museum? Had he been looking at it all night, unaware? He could go…

But it was too late. It was after midnight, and especially with all the likely chaos with the outage, there would be security and other personnel and others swarming this part of the museum soon. Ray quickly shut the safe and ducked out the door. He started walking quickly away, pulling off his mask as he headed back up a flight of stairs, ready to fake credentials as a member of museum staff if he had to.

The Hobbs kids would have to make do with their memories. The Glacier Tiara had vanished again after all.

* * *

“And then the fire alarm went off, too.” Dr. Palmer gives Mr. Rory another look of great reproach. “At least I know how what caused that. And at least they got it before it spread.”

Mr. Rory shrugs, apparently unconcerned. “I’m still kinda confused,” he admits, sitting his now-empty beer down. “So…the fake tiara was in the exhibit case. Blondie took it out when the power went out. Then what did happen to the real one?”

“I have no…”

Rip just can’t resist any longer. He takes a sip of the tea he’d made himself while Dr. Palmer was talking, then clears his throat, watching as eyes turn toward him.

“Don’t tell me…” Sara starts, as Mr. Snart laughs, a low and somewhat amused noise.

Rip gives her a small smile, then looks at Dr. Palmer. “You’ve mentioned, several times, the stories about the Glacier Tiara, Dr. Palmer,” he says, looking down into the tea. “Do you remember any of those stories?”

The inventor gives him a quizzical look. “Well, yeah,” he says, glancing around. “Timothy Hobbs’ great-grandmother rescued a stranger at the family farm back in…1899, I think it was. He gave her the tiara in thanks before he vanished again.” He sits up, warming to the subject. “It stayed a private family legend until Hobbs’ mother died in 2006 and he started looking for more information on it. There were no records of a sapphire of that size, quality, shape, or color, and some gemologists think it might even be a completely undiscovered gemstone…”

“It was.”

Now all eyes really are on Rip. He glances around, taking another drink of his tea.

“Actually, more properly, it’s…well, that’s beside the point.” He gets to his feet, putting the teacup down and surveying the room. “Not to get further off track, but Dr. Palmer, do you remember what the Hobbs twins wanted to do if they got the tiara back?”

Dr. Palmer frowns. “Yeah…they said there was a lab out of Gotham that just finished testing a new way to date metals and rocks, including gemstones,” he says slowly. “Nothing else had worked very well on the tiara. They hoped they might get them more information about its origin.”

“Yes. And you see…” Rip smiles, enjoying an actual attentive audience for once. “…I simply could not allow that to happen.”

Silence. Then Dr. Palmer sighs.

“You were there too,” he says. It’s not a question. “Seriously?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Rip strolls over to the counter, claiming his purloined scotch and pouring himself a glass. “I was still a Time Master, of course. And for the sake of the timeline, we could not allow anyone to find out just how old that particular piece of jewelry is.”

He pauses. And after a moment, Sara takes the bait with a sigh.

“So, just how old is it?” she asks pointedly, eyeing him as she turns in her seat

“Oh…” Rip toasts her, enjoying himself. “Only a few million years older than the rise of modern man.” He smiles at Mick’s noise of disbelief. “It belonged to a princess of Atlantis once, you see.”

“A princess…of Atlantis…” Mr. Snart’s voice is thoughtful. “Right. And how did it get to the Hobbs family?”

“Well, the Time Master who’d originally plucked it from a fisherman’s net still had it in his possession when time pirates shot him down near the Hobbs far.” Rip leaned against the table, taking a drink. “And he did give it to Maria Hobbs in thanks.” His smile grows a little sad. “He…gave her something else, too, as they grew closer, though it would seem her husband-to-be at the time was never fully aware of that. From what I’ve heard, Time Master Josephus fully intended to return to her and his child, but the time pirates…they caught up with him first.”

The galley is quiet for a long moment.

“Oooh.” Dr. Palmer’s voice is sad. “That’s awful. It really should have gone back to his descendants, then.”

“Except that they meant to date it.” Rip sighs. “As did Mr. Freestone. Someone, I believe, someone got an inkling that it was more than it seemed.”

“OK.” Mr. Rory’s voice is harsh. “We get it. No one could know how fuckin’ old it is. So what _happened_?”

“The Time Masters sent me to….reacquire it.”

“They sent you to steal it,” Mr. Snart corrects. “Tell it like it is, Rip.”

Rip frowns at him, but he really can’t argue. “All right, fine. To steal it. But the truth is…” He takes another drink, knowing his smile is returning. “…I really didn’t have to, in the end.”


	5. Time Master (and AI)

**“Time Master (and AI)”**

Rip stopped outside the Central City Museum of Art and Antiquities and carefully slipped on the mask that Gideon had made him. He wasn’t an invited guest for this masquerade, not in the usual sense, but if he was going to be here, he might as well fit in. It might make a few things easier, after all.

And it did conceal the earpiece he was wearing, as well.

And speaking of…he tapped said earpiece, glancing around before saying “Gideon?” in a low tone.

“Right here, Captain Hunter,” the AI said promptly. “Are my readings correct? Have you arrived at the museum?”

“I am. I’m heading in in just a moment.” Rip adjusted his mask, giving his reflection in a nearby window a quick glance. Gideon’s choice made him smile. “I like the mask. Thank you.”

“You are welcome, captain. I rather like it as well.”

_“So, what were you, British?”_

_“In time, Mr. Rory. In time.”_

_“You haven’t figured it out yet, Mick? Tsk.”_

_“Shut it, Snart.”_

Per the Time Masters’ timeline information, Rip had been told, this night was the most fortuitous point for the Glacier Tiara to vanish once more. He’d made sure to arrive after the event was in full swing, the better to catch the current owner—well, possessor—of the tiara a bit off guard and distracted.

Freestone would feel obligated to talk to him, though…or rather, to talk to the man Freestone _thought_ he was: The man in charge of the insurance on the museum’s artworks—including things that happened to be officially loaned to it at the moment.

“Please tell Mr. Freestone that Mr. Sterling is here,” Rip told the harried-looking security director, who’d been called over when Rip hadn’t had an invitation to present to the guards at the front entrance. He smiled a little at the man, who looked like he needed a drink, or maybe just a chance to yell at someone for a while. “He’s expecting me. I’m sorry he didn’t tell you.”

The director…Doyle, Rip recalled…shook his head as he checked Rip’s (fake) ID and led him into the museum. “Yes, well, that’s his fault, not yours,” he complained in a low tone, then paused before moving into the main gallery, his voice dipping even more. “Mr. Sterling…would it be of interest to your company to know that Freestone has made quite a number of security changes against the advice of experts? Especially for tonight? Seems like that might affect insurance matters.”

“Experts such as yourself?” But Rip smiled again as the man looked slightly embarrassed. “Yes, indeed. I’ll be in touch, Mr. Doyle. I would be quite interested to learn more.”

Well, he would be if he was the man he claimed, anyway.

Doyle, looking gratified, led him to the correct area and pointed out Freestone before returning to the front of the museum. Rip bid him farewell, then studied the other man, who was talking to guests and looking rather bored and haughty. And really, almost too nonchalant for what he was up to tonight.

Rip shook his head, then decided to take a closer look at the tiara in question first. He’d already researched the lay of the land here, but he needed to be sure the pieces were where he expected them to be.

The days of smartphone cameras were a boon for Time Master operatives, regardless of what Gideon thought of them. Rip drifted closer to the tiara in its case, giving the guard a quick glance as he pulled out his own “phone,” aiming it at the artifact. Then he beat a hasty retreat, making sure the image had transmitted to the Waverider.

_“Wait! Phone...you were owl guy, weren’t you?”_

_“Indeed, Mr. Rory. I really did rather like that mask.”_

_“Owl? Wait a minute...”_

_“All in time, Dr. Palmer.”_

“Gideon?” he asked under his breath, studying the photo and temporal readings himself. If these were correct...

“That is the real tiara, captain,” the AI told him quietly. “Not the replica. The temporal readings around it are significant.”

“Hmmm.” Rip closed his eyes, thinking furiously. “Thank you.” He paused, lifting the phone to his ear so it didn’t seem quite so much like he was talking to thin air. “I wonder if Freestone knows that.”

“Based on all our research, captain, I very much doubt it.” Gideon sounded thoughtful. Maybe, as Druce said, Rip saw far too much personality in his ship’s AI...but he didn’t think so. “He’s hoping to have the replica stolen, not the real thing. That, he wants for himself.”

* * *

“Wait a minute.” Sara stops Rip mid-story, holding up a hand. “Just...wait.”

"This is getting really fuckin’ confusing,” Mr. Rory grumbles in agreement. He looks over at Dr. Palmer. “I thought Haircut swapped ‘em so that the fake was in the case.”

“I did,” Dr. Palmer tells him plaintively, but Rip shakes his head, taking another drink of Rob Roy’s most excellent scotch.

“No, Dr. Palmer,” he says. “You didn’t. You did the opposite.” He points at the other man, knowing he’s looking just a little smug. “You made an assumption, that Freestone would want the real thing in the case, because you were thinking he’d paid someone to steal it for him. In fact, he did not.”

“So...” Mr. Snart drawls, cutting in. “When the Boy Scout swapped the entries, he was putting the replica in the vault and the real tiara out in the museum.” He tilts his head as everyone looks at him. “Yet, somehow, the fake wound up in the case for Sara to swipe.”

“Indeed.” Rip clears his throat. “Now. May I continue?”

* * *

"Mr. Freestone? Mr. Sterling.” Rip smiled, trying to keep a rather knowing smirk off his face as he extended his hand to the other man. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person.”

Freestone’s eyes widen behind his own mask, an oddly nondescript domino that resembles nothing more than the masks the security guards are wearing, albeit with finer materials and a few stones that might be onyx. He takes the hand, but drops it nearly immediately, and Rip can just about see him start to sweat.

“Ah,” he said, his voice just short of a stammer. “Mr. Sterling. I knew you were...well, I wasn’t really expecting you _tonight_...”

Well, of all the people he might want to see right now, the insurance adjuster who’d been sniffing around all his dealings was probably near the bottom of the list. Rip kept the smile on his face, inclining his head, keeping his eyes on Freestone’s.

“It seemed...appropriate,” he said quietly, letting Freestone move back into a slightly more secluded area. “There are so many beautiful...and valuable...things here tonight, are there not? Such as the Glacier Tiara.”

Freestone cleared his throat. “Yes...yes, indeed.” Rip was rather impressed that the man kept himself from glancing over at the case. “Lovely, is it not?”

“Very.” Rip took a sip from the glass of champagne he’d grabbed on his way over to Freestone. “You do realize, that’s the real tiara.”

“Of course it’s...” But the other man stopped, staring at Rip. “What do you mean?”

“There are several small, telltale signs.” Such as the temporal signature, but he certainly wasn’t telling Freestone that. He lowered his voice a bit more. “If you have indeed set it up so that it will likely be stolen tonight, leaving you the original, I’d think you’d want that very fine replica you commissioned to be out here instead.”

_“Oooooh. I didn’t think of that!”_

_“You don’t think of a lot of shit, Haircut.”_

There was a long moment of silence. The buzz around them continued, but none one else seemed to realize what was passing here, in this alcove just off the gallery.

Then Freestone laughed. “What on Earth do you mean?” he said in a tone that was probably meant to be light but came out more strangled. “You...”

“It’s a pattern,” Rip told him, voice now stern, leaning on all the information he and Gideon had been able to gather to use here and now. “You’re a collector, Mr. Freestone. Still, you keep loaning things to museums—and they keep getting stolen. Then you collect through the museum’s insurance, wait another year or so, and do it again.”

Freestone’s mouth moved, but he didn’t say anything. Rip nodded. “And you want that tiara very much, though it’s likely the courts will take it away from you,” he said, glancing over the case. “This must have seemed like an obvious answer.”

“I...” Freestone found his voice again, but Rip pinned him with a glance.

“Make no mistake,” he said, his voice hard. “We have you here, sir. We have the documentation, a good deal of evidence. I could do this right now, bring the police in.” He continued before the other man could do more than go white as paper. “However...perhaps we can make a deal.”

“What...sort of deal?”

Ha. Rip had him. “I know you want the real tiara,” he said casually, taking another drink and scanning the room. “That’s simply not going to happen.” He paused. “However. If you turn it over to me, here and now, we’re willing to refrain from fraud charges, at least provided your little scam stops here.”

_“Nice. Just enough truth to nail him.”_

_“Why, thank you, Mr. Snart. That means a lot coming from a practiced liar such as yourself.”_

Truthfully, Freestone had no choice at all. And he knew it. Still, he tried to match glares with Rip for a long moment, as if daring him to pull the trigger.

Rip had stared down better men than Edward Freestone. He kept his bored gaze, reinforced with a thread of steel, on Freestone’s until the other man scowled and looked away, then muttered something about getting the tiara and moved away.

Rip moved toward another part of the room, hoping to avoid too much attention by shifting his location, and watched as the other man vanished through a nearby door, heading down to the vaults. “Gideon,” he said quietly. “We’ve hooked our fish. I don’t think he’s going to try to slip the hook, but please keep an eye for his life signs leaving the environs of the museum.”

“Of course, Captain.”

He couldn’t help but wonder what sort of excuse Freestone would find for replacing the tiara, but it turned out that luck was with the man, in regard to that at any rate. Maybe 10 minutes later, a shriek cut through the noise of the crowd just after Rip saw the door not far from the tiara’s exhibit case open. It was followed up a moment later by another shriek and the sound of a rather serious slap, though Rip kept his eyes on the door and the tiara instead of looking over like everyone else was.

Freestone stepped out a moment later, just as the security guard growled and moved toward the disturbance. He glanced around, then stepped in front of the case, placing a black drape over it and leaning over it. Rip rolled his eyes at the obviousness of it, but if it served the purpose...whatever.

The actual switch was the matter of moments. Freestone had just relocked the case and removed the cloth when the guard returned. For a second, Rip thought the big man was going to challenge him, but...it wasn’t to be. The host beat a hasty retreat while the guard took up his post again, over the tiara that looked exactly the same as before.

But wasn’t.

“Gideon?”

“The temporal signature is moving now, Captain.” There was what almost seemed to be a frown in the AI’s voice. “He definitely has it. But...it’s very odd. There are a lot of strange variables in play right now, all focused on the museum. And not all have to do with the tiara.”

Freestone glanced around, but he obviously didn’t see where Rip had moved to. His eyes flickered around, his fingers tightening visibly around the small case he held, before he started heading out into the other galleries.

Rip shook his head and helped himself to a stuffed mushroom from a tray held by a passing waitress. Part of him wanted to go get the damned tiara and get out of here, but if there was another sort of temporal crisis brewing here, perhaps he should stick around a bit.

Ah, well. The food was good. A band was playing now. And while he’d seen far more notable art than this throughout history, it was still rather interesting to stroll about and see the sights.

A number of people were dancing to the music. Rip skirted them as he moved around the room, thinking about Miranda, and how she loved to dance. It’d been a long, long time since they’d had any sort of date. He wished he could have brought her tonight, though if Druce heard that he’d involved her in any sort of Time Master business, the fallout would be...unpleasant.

After this mission, he promised himself, studying a painting of a woman’s profile, they’d get some time together. Maybe...maybe they’d even talk about starting a family. No matter what the Time Masters thought of that.

“Any change, Gideon?” he whispered.

“No, Captain.” The AI paused. “It really is quite odd. As if something could happen tonight that might change a number of points, some of which affect your own personal timeline. But I can’t tell how or why.”

That’s unnerving. “Keep me updated.” Rip sighed, glancing around, wondering what on Earth, besides his mission here, could be affecting his own timeline. Even if someone tried to pull a full-on robbery tonight, he had no intention of being anywhere in the way. Would Freestone try something? It didn’t seem in the man’s makeup.

He shook his head, sidestepping a couple who seemed aware of only each other, and headed into a side galley, pausing to grab another tidbit. Replicator food just wasn’t the same. Might as well take advantage of this.

And so he did. Even after Gideon reported, maybe 10 minutes later and still sounding perplexed, that most—but not all—of the temporal uncertainly had resolved.

Rip pinpointed Freestone fairly quickly, the man still holding on to the small case with the tiara and obviously looking around for him, but other people kept accosting the host before he could do so. Well, Rip wasn’t above letting him twist in the wind a little. Or a lot.

If there was one thing, though, that a Time Master knew, it was that time marched on no matter what. And eventually, the night started drawing to a close, and Rip found a way to herd Freestone into a corner literally as well as figuratively, approaching as he watched the mix of relief and irritation cross the man’s face.

He held out a hand for the case. Freestone gave it to him.

Gideon piped up in his ear before Rip could even ask. “That’s it.”

With that assurance, he didn’t even have to bother to check the case—but he did, just to annoy the other man, turning his body to block anyone else’s view of the tiara, then lifting it out of the case and securing it in an inside pocket of his suit. Rather spoiled the lay of the jacket, but such was the risk one ran. Then he just gave the shorter man a thin smile, ignoring the obvious indignation.

“We’ll have our eye on you, Mr. Freestone,” he said dismissively, handing the empty case back. “This is not the sort of thing our firm takes lightly. Still, this will prove useful in catching bigger fish than you.”

Freestone drew himself up, but then clearly thought better of trying to argue that he _was _a bigger fish, especially when he was apparently miraculously slipping the hook here. He sputtered a little, then turned and marched away, radiating annoyance and resentment.

Rip shrugged, adjusting his suit coat again, and turned away. Temporal uncertainty or not, he rather thought it was time to get out of here, before something...

The unexpected impact startled him. Rip put a hand out, blinking, his other hand going to make sure the tiara was still hidden, as the man he’d collided with let out an audible “oof” and let go of something, some sort of phone or device that popped out of his hands and skidded across the room.

He hadn’t even been looking where he was going. _Silly little smartphones_, Rip heard Gideon mutter in his memory and nearly smiled. “Sorry about that,” he tossed toward the man in the dog mask, who was scrambling after his phone, then turned away, strolling toward the exit.

He only made it to the main gallery, though, before the AI spoke up in truth. “Captain,” she said urgently. “The chance of major changes is rising again. And...”

Static.

“Gideon?” Rip could feel people looking at him and pulled his own “phone” out of his pocket to feign a call. “What’s going on?”

“...changes...I can’t...”

Real worry, for the first time, prickled down his spine. “I’m heading back to the Waverider. Hold on.”

“...no...”

Guests had started counting down to midnight at this point. Rip ignored it all, fiddling with the settings on his earpiece, hoping this problem was only with the connection. “I should stay? But...”

“...midnight...”

And it was, then, with cheers and people pulling off masks all around him. Rip listened, concerned, torn between rushing back to his ship...and his AI...and trying to figure out what this big possible change in the timeline was.

Then the power flickered. Gideon, as if on cue, very nearly yelled into Rip’s ear. “Captain...the uncertainty has resolved. Return to...”

Her voice faded as the power went out for a few more seconds.

“The Waverider?” But Rip had heard enough. He headed for the exit as the lights flickered again, jostled left and right by others heading that way. And as the power finally went out, leaving the Central City Museum of Art and Antiquities in darkness, he emerged into the fresh air, breathing a sigh of relief and heading at a jog back to his ship and his life.

Another mission successfully completed.

* * *

Rip toasts them all with his glass again, feeling just a bit smug at the expressions directed his way. Well, it _was _a bit amazing that so many of them had ended up at the museum that night, but they should know that the Time Masters took...had taken...these things seriously.

“Sorry,” he offers, after a moment. “It really was quite a comedy of errors, wasn’t it? The two tiaras, the switches, the power outage...almost Shakespearian, if you think about it.”

Sara glares at him, though he thinks the expression is joking. Mostly. He hopes. “Oh, yeah. Really funny.”

“Yeah.” Dr. Palmer speaks up drily as Mr. Rory just swears at him. “Hysterical. Did you ever find out what the timeline weirdness was?”

But Mr. Snart speaks up before Rip can answer. “Never mind that,” he drawls, leaning back in his chair. “What happened to it?”

Rip frowns at him. “The tiara?”

Snart rolls his eyes. “No, the museum. _Yes_, the tiara. Did the thing go up with the Vanishing Point? Or do you have it somewhere here?” He waves a hand toward Rip’s office. “Tucked away amidst all those souvenirs of yours?”

“Well...I presume...”

“No.” Snart’s gaze is unnervingly direct. “Rip. What happened to the damned tiara?”

* * *

Rip had been about a block from the museum, frowning at the sound of sirens in the air and the sight of fire engines rushing back the way he’d come, when Gideon’s voice returned to his earpiece.

“Rip,” the AI said sharply. “Where is the tiara?”

He slowed to a walk, relieved beyond words. “What? Are you...is the Waverider all right?”

“The ship is fine. I am fine. Captain, where is the tiara?”

Rip put his hand to his jacket. Paused. Scrambled for the inner hidden pocket that should have concealed the Glacier Tiara, a piece of jewelry out of time, one that could reveal secrets about ancient history that humankind simply wasn’t ready for.

The tiara was gone.

* * *

“Then where the hell _was _the damned thing?” Mr. Rory’s voice rises above the other chatter, and Rip winces.

He shakes his head, looking down at the bottle of scotch, then picks it up and grabs two more glasses, crossing the room to pour both Dr. Palmer and Mr. Rory a drink, as well as to refill the glasses belonging to Sara, Snart, and himself. Then he takes a seat, shaking his head.

“The truth is, I don’t know,” Rip admits, looking around. “It was still considered a successful mission, because the danger to the timeline from the tiara’s presence vanished after that.” He takes a drink, looking down into the amber liquid as if it holds the answers. “Whoever has it never tried to get the components dated, nor apparently had any intention of doing so.”

Silence greets his words again. And after a moment, he looks up.

Mr. Rory and Dr. Palmer are both engrossed in their own drinks. But Sara...

Sara is staring at Snart.

Who looks rather like...well, like the cat who ate the canary.

Clued in, perhaps, by the quality of the silence, Mr. Rory looks over, too. The noise that escapes him at the expression on his former partner’s face gets Dr. Palmer’s attention, and the inventor’s jaw drops at the same thought that’s apparently going through everyone’s else head.

After a long moment, Snart inclines his head. It’s an acknowledgment once more and, Rip thinks, an answer.

“What can I say?” he asks smoothly, eyes on Sara for some reason. “I’m one _hell _of a thief.”


	6. Thief

**“Thief”**

Really, Leonard thought as he handed the security guard his invitation to the gala, if the Central City Museum of Art and Antiquities didn’t want the city’s most notable thief inside its hallowed walls, it shouldn’t plan silly events like masquerades that made that much easier to gain entry.

The guard accepted the invitation, sent to one of Leonard’s more respectable aliases, without batting an eyelash (which was a pity, really…he was rather cute) and nodded him in. Len threw him a sly smile before sauntering into the museum, hands clasped behind his back, relatively secure in the anonymity conveyed by his mask.

Frankly, he had suspicions about this whole thing, including the seeming foolishness of a masquerade. A trap for such as him? Could be, but he didn’t think so. He’d also been following much of the news revolving around a certain item known to be held at the museum right now, and the wheels had been turning.

Who better than a thief to put together the pieces involving stolen property and an insurance scam?

_“Wait…wait a moment. You’re saying you had that all figured out before you even set foot in the museum? Without access to all the records Gideon and I had?”_

_“What, like it was hard?”_

Leonard didn’t like Edward Freestone much, though he didn’t know the man personally. His buddy Hobbs had been an asshat, and Freestone was cut from the same cloth. Greedy rich bastards of the highest order, both of them.

Leonard had no illusions about who he was—thief and liar and criminal, albeit with his own type of code. But he didn’t pretend to be otherwise, and he tended to take from those who could afford it anyway. Freestone and Hobbs were thieves of a different stripe, that was all, ones who did it in the guise of business, and he had no use for them.

Though it made it even more fun, frankly, to steal from them.

And there was so _very_ much to steal. The museum tonight was even more packed with goodies, and the hired-gun security force was a weakness. Especially since one member of that force—at least—really was an honest-to-god criminal.

_“Fuck me! You knew?”_

_“You made a lot of inquiries, Mick. Word got back to me. Part of the reason I wandered back to Central.”_

_“Fuck. Trying to steal my thunder?”_

_“Actually, trying to make sure you didn’t get into trouble you couldn’t get out of…”_

Mick had gotten himself stationed right at the Glacier Tiara, and he was already standing there, masked and suit-clad, when Leonard ghosted into the room. Pity—that meant he’d need to observe the artifact from rather more of a distance than he’d like. But Mick of all people was more likely than just about anyone else to recognize him, even in his rudimentary disguise,

Leonard shrugged philosophically and turned away, snagging himself a glass of champagne. He’d work something out. And in the meantime, there were many other things to see and to study.

Including his fellow guests.

It was quite an interesting array, really, a veritable who’s-who of Central City. All masked, of course, but Leonard had always made a practice of watching not only facial features and cues but also body language and other tell-tale notes. He picked out the mayor of Central in short order, as well as the police chief and a few others. Harrison Wells of STAR Labs made a brief appearance, but Leonard didn’t see him until just before he left, apparently disgruntled by the mask requirement.

It wasn’t just the bigwigs who were interesting, of course. There was one woman in particular who caught his eye very early on, an unknown to him who seemed to be alone at the event. She wore a mask and finery like every other guest there that night, but she moved like a fighter rather than a politician or a business owner or a socialite.

And he wouldn’t hesitate at all to say she was by far the deadliest thing in the museum, far more than any of the guards themselves.

_“Sara, I think he’s talking about you!”_

_“Oddly enough, Ray, I really did figure that out.”_

Instinct told Leonard it was best to conceal his fascination, though—for more than one reason. He watched her from the corner of his eye, intrigued, through Freestone’s welcome speech and after. She was very good at fitting in, always looking like she was on her way to or from someone else, and if he hadn’t been watching so intently, he wouldn’t have realized that much of her attention kept drifting back to the tiara.

Not a thief by trade, he thought. But...something.

The very purposeful collision with the guy in the dog mask was obviously meant to draw attention and Mick took the bait...well, was forced to take it by the security director, a fellow by the name of Doyle that Len had run into before. Not a bad guy, really, just on the opposite side of the game. Leonard, lurking, watched Mick and the other man and the woman in the white feathered mask as she moved back toward the...

Well, well, well.

What was Freestone up to? Leonard tilted his head, focus drawn fully now to the man, who—from his oblique vantage point—had clearly done something to the tiara. Perhaps switched it? For there was still a tiara in the display case, but Freestone now carried a case that was just about the correct size. And as Mick roared back toward him, exuding intimidation, the host just about scurried away, leaving everything looking just the same behind him.

Leonard followed him, keeping his stroll casual and unhurried, eyes intent behind his mask.

_“And what were you, anyway?”_

_“You really haven’t figured that out yet, Haircut?”_

But Freestone couldn’t seem to find who or what he was looking for. The man’s gaze became wilder and wilder as he cast about, just this side of frantic as he moved from area to area. Len eyed the case, but decided it was a little too big and obvious to pilfer just now—and Freestone just a little too agitated. So, he shrugged and moved away before the host could notice his attention.

Back in the main gallery, though, the first thing he clapped eyes on was the woman in the white mask. She was watching the people now dancing with an air of consideration, and maybe just a hint of wistfulness, and before he even realized what he was doing, Leonard had walked right up to her and done something he could barely imagine doing.

“May I have this dance?”

_“Wait...you were...!”_

_“Dr. Palmer. Please. Let...let him tell the story.”_

_“But...oh...um...”_

The woman started, caught by surprise, which was a little gratifying, really, considering what he’d observed of her before. For a moment, the glare she directed at him was scary enough that he nearly thought better of this...but then it softened, just a little, and he found himself the recipient of a rather thorough once-over.

And then an actual smile, an expression that drew an answering smile from him.

Oh, this could be dangerous.

“How’d you know I was thinking about dancing?” she asked, sounding a little amused and, oddly, just a little uncertain, looking down at the hand he’d held out.

Len shrugged, wondering if he was making a mistake here—for oh-so-many reasons. “You _were_ pretty focused on the dancing,” he observed, wondering at the flash of annoyance he thought he saw then. “And you looked, maybe, a bit wistful.”

And then, because she didn’t seem the sort to be pleased at all that he’d noticed any vulnerability, he added, a bit arrogantly but not untruthfully, “And I am, if I may say, not bad on my feet. Might be fun.”

She eyed him for another moment...and then took his hand.

Leonard pulled her nearer very carefully, trying to walk a line here. He really wasn't fond of contact, but some was needed in such cases, after all. He settled one hand carefully at the woman’s waist, feeling lean muscle that backed up his earlier impressions, then adjusted a careful grip on her hand, paused, and then let the music guide their steps.

Like him, she wasn’t a talker, and that was fine. Leonard studied the white-feathered mask, which evoked something avian without actually replicating a bird, and the bright blue eyes behind that mask. There were many things, he thought, flickering through those eyes—pleasure at the dance, uncertainty, an irritation that wasn’t directed at him, and something sad...

“Why the frown?” he asked before he could stop himself. She seemed to have that effect on him. It was unexpected, disturbing, and oddly alluring.

The woman glanced up, surprise obvious, and Len hastened to make it clear that he wasn't doing something as incredibly dumb as saying she should smile. “Really, I’m not criticizing, but if you’d like to stop…”

“No.” The word was prompt enough to allay his annoyance at his misstep. She sighed. “No, sorry, it’s not that.” For another long moment, he was the recipient of another thorough once-over, but this one seemingly directed more at...well, she couldn't see his eyes, but maybe...

“Just...homesick,” she said finally, and he distinctly got the impression that she wasn’t referring only to a physical location.

“Ah. I get that.” And he did.

They danced without speaking for a few minutes, but now she was watching him, eyes intent and thoughtful.

“So, what brought _you_ here tonight?” she asked, after a moment.

A part of the truth was the best kind of lie...and he sensed that flirtation, now, would not be unwelcome. Len allowed a bit of innuendo into his tone, realizing that he was enjoying himself. “I enjoy...beautiful things.”

That got a laugh and a bit of sparkle in those blue, blue eyes. “Oh, smooth.”

“I try,” he shot back, amused.

The eyes sparkled even more. “Yes, you’re apparently _very_ trying.”

Leonard was startled into a laugh himself. Now, that almost _never _happened. While the song seemed to be ending, he found himself incredibly loathe to let her go...but he did pause, just a little, in case she wanted to.

But she didn’t pull away. Instead, she continued the banter a few seconds later, after an intent inspection of his mask, a piece he’d actually purchased at a charity auction a year or two back. “So, you’re…what? A collector? Of beautiful things?”

In a manner of speaking. “Sometimes. Sometimes simply an…admirer.”

She tilted her head. “And are any of the pieces here yours?”

He can’t resist. “Not _yet_.” And even he wasn’t sure if he meant the tiara...or...

It drew, Leonard thought, a raised brow. He was moving a bit fast here with the innuendo, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Again.

The woman apparently found it worthy of a warning. “I’ll warn you,” she told him, not without a bit of amusement. “I’m not completely alone here. And I’m _far _more dangerous than I look.”

The first half of that was a lie. The second was pure unvarnished truth. Len smiled back at her, turning them both casually as they move nearer the tiara, trying to keep Mick from getting a good look at him. “Now, that, I totally believe.”

For some reason, that turned her gaze inward again. Leonard continued to watch her, puzzling through this quick and unusual attraction, and then realized that the music was slowing, the band apparently about to take a break. And the realization that he was about to lose the chance he’d never even intended to take spurred him to speak again.

“Going to be in town long?”

It wasn’t, necessarily, a proposition. It also wasn’t, necessarily, _not _one. And it’s clear that she took it that way, eyes widening just a little as they started to slow.

But then: “Leaving tonight,” she said, and Len thought that he definitely heard regret there. “Right after this. I have…somewhere to be.”

You could _be _here, he thought. But Leonard merely nodded, concealing the flicker of disappointment he felt.

“Pity,” he said, and smiled at her. “Thank you for the dance, birdy.”

And then he beat a hasty retreat.

_“You? _You _retreated? Seriously? You never...”_

_“Mick?”_

_“Blondie?”_

_“Shut up.”_

What the _hell _had he been thinking? Leonard stalked through the crowd, irritated at himself. He’d come here on a whim, really, tempted by the oddity and the suspicion of something going on underneath the surface with Freestone and that so-mysterious tiara and his curiosity about Mick’s presence.

He certainly hadn’t meant to...to become enamored of a mystery woman. One he’d almost certainly never meet again.

Leonard growled, stopping in his tracks and looking around. There had to be something here he could steal.

_“I wanna hear more about ‘enamored.’”_

_“Mick?”_

_“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Shut up.”_

For the next little while, Leonard prowled the museum, restlessly considering just about everything. The dagger...that was intriguing for the mere fact that a friend of his sister’s had apparently stolen it once...or twice, the story was convoluted. There were a number of lovely paintings, even if he discounted the modern art (and, oh, he did).

But the fact was, he had no plans, for once. No clever scheme, no detailed map of the security details in his head. Not even any tools to rewire or finesse the security system.

_“I’d like to see you try!”_

_“Don’t dare him, Haircut. It won’t go well.”_

Then, eventually, he spied Freestone again. Still clutching his little metal case. Still looking a bit wild around the eyes. Backed up against a wall and looking around like he’d lost something he desperately needed but never really wanted in the first place.

Leonard stopped in his tracks. Then, he turned away, grabbing himself another glass of champagne with a murmur of thanks to the waitress, and settled himself to watch the man out of the corner of his eye. If nothing else, maybe he could figure out some of what was going on.

He wasn’t quite sure just how long later it was, but his first clue was the weird combination of anger and relief on Freestone’s face. Another man, one in a...was that an owl mask?...had approached him and...

And Freestone gave him the case.

Leonard took a long drink of champagne, concealing how his eyes narrowed. The newcomer had turned to shield the case with his body, for the most part, but it seemed he was removing something and...from what Len could tell, he’d pocketed that something.

Something big, maybe seven or eight inches across, and round, but not substantial in the way of, say, a piece of pottery or sculpture. Thin enough in places to slip into a pocket, but wide enough in others to mess up how a suit coat hung.

Like...a tiara with a large blue stone as its centerpiece.

Freestone stomped away, then, full of pique, but Leonard’s eyes stayed on the taller man, who seemed unconcerned. He turned away, settling his jacket...and ran right into yet another guy, one Len had noted and disregarded earlier, who was staring at the device in his hands instead of where he was going.

The device popped out of his grasp and skidded across the room, and man in the dog mask dove after it. (Playing fetch, a snide inner voice commented.) Leonard, however, kept watching the owl, who merely turned away. And then, he realized someone else was watching the scene.

The woman in the white mask.

For some reason—nerves, continued conflict about his reaction to her, who knew—he took a prompt step back, behind one of the gallery’s support pillars, transferring his attention to her despite himself. And so, he saw her eyes narrow as she focused on something else across the room.

Leonard carefully glanced around, following her gaze...and saw the green light at the base of a display cabinet there.

He knew what that meant. As a thief, how could he not? And if that case was unlocked, were all the others?

The woman in the feathered mask had turned, now, heading back toward the tiara and Mick. Leonard, registering just how close to midnight it was getting, followed her.

And the light was green there, too.

She was staring at it. Leonard watched her intently, staying just far enough back that Mick couldn’t see him. Even if the case was unlocked, he thought, there were just too many people around to chance anything without more of a plan...and he wanted neither Mick nor her (for some strange reason) hurt or worse in an attempt to steal this cursed thing.

_“I’d have won, though. Sorry, Blondie.”_

_“Mick? You really wouldn’t have.”_

People started counting down a minute to midnight all around them. Like it was New Year’s Eve. Like…

Temptation rose. And—yet again, almost without meaning to—Leonard moved again, closer, risking discovery. And a moment later, she turned to glance around the room…and saw him.

Leonard tilted his head at her, letting a smile touch his lips, inviting…what? More familiarity than he’d invited in rather a long time, actually. But as it turned out, there was really only one thing he wanted to steal tonight. And it wasn’t the tiara.

She licked her lips, lifting her gaze to his. Was it really only he who sensed the attraction that just about palpable, there in the air between them? He didn’t think so.

The woman closed her eyes, then, looking almost disoriented, almost frightened. Leonard took a step closer. Suddenly, he had a strong feeling that something was wrong…that whatever brought her here, it wasn’t fully of her own volition, that the conflict he’s sensing has something far more serious than a possible attraction to a stranger at its base.

“...TEN...NINE...EIGHT...”

“You OK?” he asked, concerned.

“...THREE...TWO...ONE...”

She opened her eyes, and Leonard registered the resolve in those blue eyes only a moment before she leaned forward and kissed him, even as he leaned forward to make it clear he’d like to kiss her.

It was a matter of seconds. It was a matter of forever. It was hot and sweet and somehow terrifying…

And they both pulled away, staring at each other, as the power flickered.

The woman looked around, as did Leonard. He’d only glanced back toward her—registering that Mick was just starting to turn their way--when it went out again.

Mick. Crap. He’d nearly forgotten his partner’s presence. Leonard ducked away in the darkness, head and heart in conflict, pausing near the entrance to the room as the lights came back on.

Mick would have looking right at him if he’d still been there. The woman was…merely looking at the tiara in its case.

Ouch. But then, he’d rather run off on her.

It’d be a long time before he stopped regretting that.

His partner looked up, then, but Leonard had already pulled back, noting the signs that showed security was going to start clearing the room. He turned for the exit, restless and still conflicted, accepting this thoroughly unexpected evening as a failure all around.

Then someone brushed past him.

Leonard recognized the guy in the owl mask even the power flickered again and as he started moving in that direction himself. And the wheels started to turn.

The tiara’s spot in an inner pocket was a complication, but Leonard knew his business, and the chaos of the scene didn’t hurt. He bumped into the other man hard enough to disarray them both, but the man in the owl mask barely paused. He kept going, and Leonard went too, heading in the opposite direction as they both emerged into the fresh air.

The tiara vanishing into his coat, Leonard nodded to the same security guard he’d smiled at on the way in. He headed back to his nearest safe house at an easy stroll, sighing as he heard sirens start after he’d gone barely a block. Mick just couldn’t resist playing with fire.

Well. At least the night wasn’t a total loss.


	7. Epilogue

Rip stares at Snart.

Snart stares back, his gaze a little amused and a little challenging both. He’s very steadfastly not looking at Sara, and Rip can’t really blame him, considering what he’d just admitted.

But to learn that after all this time that the mysterious disappearance of the Glacier Tiara, a very nearly priceless artifact that could have changed time so much, had come down to merely…

Rip laughs out loud, breaking at least some of the tension in the room, and he hears Dr. Palmer’s chuckle and Mr. Rory’s snort as he does. The whole thing…it’s just ludicrous, really, but isn’t that how time works, so often? The biggest things hinge on the smallest coincidences, and the tiny things are the most important, in the end.

“All that,” he says, wiping tears from his eyes. “All that planning.” He waves a hand. “Among all four of us. And in the end, you…you simply picked my pocket.”

Snart smirks at him. “Sometimes, the old tricks are best,” he says with a shrug. “A crime of opportunity, as it were. I didn’t have a buyer or any plans to sell anyway. I just…liked the damn thing.”

There’s more there, Rip thinks, but he’s not foolish enough to address it. Instead he just shakes his head, downing his scotch, and gets to his feet, pointing at the thief before he turns to go.

“The tiara…it’s truly out of circulation?” he asks sternly. “And should stay that way?”

“Hasn’t the timeline already told you that?” Snart’s still not looking anywhere near Sara.

“True enough.” Rip turns away. “Well, this has been most enlightening, all of you. But I’d suggest getting some sleep. It’s quite late, ship’s time.”

Much to his surprise, he hears Dr. Palmer and Mr. Rory follow him rather quickly.

But then maybe it’s not a surprise at all.

* * *

Leonard doesn’t say a word as Rip, Ray, and Mick depart. He doesn’t look at Sara, either, staring down into his still-half-full glass instead.

Given that she has no idea of what to say, she lets him get away with it for a time, still sifting through her own memories of that night what seems like forever ago. And when the galley is finally empty of all but them and he does glance up at her, she asks a question whose answer is probably only really valuable to her.

“Did you know?”

Leonard doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. He takes a sip of scotch, then meets her eyes.

“That it was you that night?” he asks quietly. “You mean, did I put it together after we met again, on the rooftop and at the Waverider?” He gives an almost-shrug, looking downward again. “No. Not at first, anyway. I started wondering after a while.”

He continues before Sara can speak. “And then, when I was stuck in the timestream, I had a chance to…look back. At certain things. And, yes. I realized it then.”

So, he hadn’t known that he’d already stolen a kiss, so speak, when she’d challenged him to, back before the Oculus. Sara bit her lip, conflicted, just like she’d been conflicted on that night five years ago, when she might have changed her fate and run away from the League with a man in a silver fox mask.

“Did you mean…” she starts to ask before she can stop herself.

Leonard’s gaze darts to hers, opaque but oddly cautious. “Did I mean what?” he asks.

_Did you mean the invitation I heard that night, in your voice? Would you have helped me, against the League? Told me I wasn’t a killer anymore, like you did years later? Helped me change my fate, and changed your own, as well, long before Rip could recruit us?_

Suddenly, Sara’s just tired. She tosses back her drink and stands, looking anywhere but at Leonard.

“Y’know what?” she tells him. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

Ice-blue eyes, the eyes she couldn’t see behind that fox mask (or she never would have failed to recognize him, years later) widen, a little, but Leonard just continues to watch her, seemingly at a loss for words.

“Sara,” he says carefully, after a moment, “I…”

But Sara walks away, quickly, before she can change her mind.

And to her great regret, for what turns out to be a third time in their lives, he lets her go.

* * *

The Waverider’s not that big. If Leonard really wanted to find her, Sara thinks, he’d find her.

He doesn’t find her. He doesn’t, so far as she knows, even come looking.

She hides…no, she waits, Sara Lance doesn’t _hide_…in the cargo bay for a while, then heads to the training room, where she beats the snot out of a dummy for a good half-hour. Then she showers before heading back to her room, still toweling her hair dry as she steps inside.

The Glacier Tiara is sitting on her bed, the light catching the deep blue sparkle of its central stone.

Sara stops, then drops her towel on the floor and moves closer, catching sight of the small, folded note propped up by the tiara. After a moment, she reaches out and picks it up.

“Sara” is written on the front, in Leonard’s unmistakable neat, angular handwriting. She unfolds it.

“Always thought I’d give this to the mystery woman in the white mask, if I ever caught up to her again,” she reads. “Matches your eyes.”

That’s it.

Somehow, Sara admits, she’d wanted…hoped for…more. She puts the paper down, then picks up the tiara, finally holding it five years later, studying its sparkle and considering its history—its long, long history. And thinking about Time Masters, and time pirates, and gifts.

And second chances.

And then Sara smiles. She looks down at her training clothes, then reaches for her closet and the silk robe she keeps there, the shade of blue that matches her eyes.

And, as it turns out, the Glacier Tiara.

The robe’s concealing enough to wear in the hallway, though it’s fairly obvious she’s not wearing anything under it. She wants it that way. The tiara, the cause of so much chaos and confusion, fits her like it’s made for her.

Sara studies her reflection in the mirror. Then she nods.

“Gideon...is Leonard in his room?”

“Yes, Ms. Lance.” A pause. “He’s alone. Though I think, perhaps, that he’s hoping for _company_.”

The AI’s tone leaves no doubt what sort of company she’s referring to. Sara bites back a laugh. “Ah. OK. Thank you.”

“May I say, Ms. Lance, that…really, it’s about time?”

“I couldn’t agree more, Gideon.”

The hallway is blessedly empty, and Leonard’s room isn’t so far away. The door’s closed, but it slides open as Sara approaches.

This time, she doesn’t hesitate.

The door slides shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might write a more explicit follow-up to this, if anyone wanted to read it. :)


End file.
